영문 전시 리뷰

매거진에 기고되었던 개념미술가 Joseph Beuys, Fat for heat, Felt for warmth 전시리뷰 일부분입니다.

Walking into *** Gallery located on the lower east side of Manhattan, a photograph of Beuys’ first and the most significant solo performance, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965), was on a wall adjacent to five other photographs of his works. From the performance, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, Beuys locked himself in a gallery space while having the audiences outdoor where they could observe the performance through the glass windows. Beuys covered his face with honey and gold leaf, transforming himself into a sculpture. He wore one shoe with felt on its sole and another with an iron sole; he wandered around the room with a dead hare in his arm. He explained each artwork in the gallery to the dead hare in a whisper. This peculiar performance was a three-hour performance. Photographers were eager to capture unprecedented performance. Every item in the room held a distinct purpose in its symbolism as well as its literal significance. Honey signified the potential human capacity to the development of notion and expression beyond the rational. The hare, according to Beuys, embodied the neglected intellectual realm in the history of humanity.

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Beuys’ performance is merely understood in a shallow, cerebral, and intellectual way. It is interpreted as a means to embolden the sensorial perceptions and further strengthen the creative potential of human beings. The term ‘understanding’ applies as an elevation of inner creative power as the senses become sharper, richer, and much more potent, that through intuition, inspiration, and imagination, the present thinking structure can advance beyond the merely intellectual realm.

Beuys delivers a clear message through his work. As he advocated that a “pure mind, a mind that is not coherent to one"s interpretation, exists within everyone,” he condemned the seriousness and exclusiveness of the art market. Beuys employed unconventional materials such as felt, fat, copper cane, sled, and rabbit blood to criticize the current authoritarian and capitalist system. As an alternative, he believed in the power of the shamanistic worldview. He articulated that this power has the potential to revolutionize the mind of which elevates to a transcendence of the present ideologies and social structures.

By embracing the general public for his lectures and performances, Beuys brought art into the everyday. Art was a way of communication and expression of freedom. Perhaps we may fathom the issues of German society in Beuys’ time—a struggle of living in a divided nation and a failure of communication. Thus, there is no better time to pursue Beuys’ tenacious practice of communicating and achieving freedom through art. He also reinforces the idea within us that humanity is innately creative and free. Beuys anticipated the freedom of humanity and envisioned the fulfillment through art.  

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