Joseph Beuys, University of Minneapolis,
Fragment 3, 1974, © VG Bild – Kunst, Bonn 2008,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
This is also
evidenced in his Minneapolis Fragments, a series made in 1974 on the
occasion of a lecture he gave at the university there. The fleeting
drawings, words, and diagrams lend immediate visual form to Beuys’
teaching as a process in flux that sets discussions and thought processes
into motion. "Everyone should pursue their intentions and pose questions
to attain clarity." The professor seldom gave his students concrete
assignments. Instead, it was a matter of finding one’s own personal
content, one’s goals, and the paths one needed to take to attain them. He
became directly involved only after his students presented him with the
results.
Walter
Dahn, Goldzeichnungen, 1976,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Beuys’ group critiques
were legendary—and anticipated with fear. "Beuys was very strict and very
definite," recalls Walter Dahn. "More than anyone else, he delivered clear
and definitive judgments concerning the works presented to him. And they
really hit home." His interventions sometimes led to the destruction of
the work. He ripped up drawings or chopped up his students’ sculptures
with an axe, which he declared to be a "sculptural act." For Jörg
Immendorff, Beuys’ judgments were absolute. "It was like a stamp of
quality." And whatever the professor didn’t like was quite simply painted
over.
Jörg
Immendorff, Freitag, 16.7., 1976, ©Jörg Immendorff, Courtesy Galerie
Michael Werner, Köln/New York,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Although Beuys was
skeptical of Immendorff’s Maoism-influenced imagery and of the medium of
painting in general, he encouraged him to find new ways of seeing things.
For instance, the realization that "painting has a processual aspect to
it" was like an "eye opener" to the artist. But Beuys’ actions also
influenced his work. Immendorff’s own actions with the LIDL supermarket in
the late sixties also aimed at social transformation. Featuring slogans
like "Serve the People," it was an art form that would support the sixties
revolts. The Biennale series (1976) in Ahlen still exudes the spirit of
the times; Immendorff recorded the events of the week in journal-like
form. Protest march on Thursday; poster action on the Biennale and a
conspiratorial meeting on Friday: agitprop in the wall newspaper style.
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Katharina Sieverding, ID/IV, 1992, © VG
Bild – Kunst, Bonn 2008,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Immendorff’s provocative
actions eventually led to his dismissal from the academy in 1969. And
Beuys also had serious conflicts with the academy’s authorities. Because
limiting study ran counter to his ideas, in 1971 he accepted all 142
students into his class that had been rejected by the academy, a decision
the Ministry of Science outright rejected. In response, Beuys and his
students occupied the academy’s offices. In a talk with the minister Johannes
Rau, he won his case and the art academy formally accepted the
applicants. But when Beuys once again occupied the offices with rejected
students the next year, the minister fired him without notice.
Anselm
Kiefer, Grab des unbekannten Malers, 1982, © Anselm Kiefer,
Deutsche
Ban k Collection
In a 1969 interview
with the American art magazine Artforum,
Beuys declared: "To be a teacher is my greatest work of art." During his
time at the Dusseldorf Art Academy, he taught over 300 students, leaving
his mark on an entire generation of artists. Although the charismatic
professor’s influence on his students was immense, they did not develop
into epigones. Traces of Beuys’ works can nonetheless be detected in their
works, as in a sensibility for "poor" materials in the works of Ulrich
Meister and Felix Droese, who like Beuys was involved with ecology
early on. And while Anselm Kiefer’s investigation into cosmic mythology is
clearly influenced by his teacher, Katharine Sieverding carries on Beuys’
criticism of the materialistic concept of science in her photographic
series, for example Kontinentalkern. To Sieverding, Beuys embodied an
ideal because he was "always there for his students, always challenging
them and expecting achievement. You couldn’t find a better example of a
teacher."
Joseph
Beuys, Iphigenie/Titus, 1985, © VG Bild – Kunst, Bonn 2008,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
The quotes are translated
from Petra Richter’s book Mit,
neben, gegen – Die Schüler von Joseph Beuys, Richter
Verlag, Dusseldorf 2000.
“To be a teacher is my greatest work of
art” – Joseph Beuys and his students.
Works from the
Deutsche Bank Collection
Kunstmuseum Ahlen
through November 23, 2008
[1]
[2]
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