Joseph Beuys: Trending quotes (page 2)

“I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression. I say not that art has already realized this, on the contrary, and because it has not, it has to be developed as a weapon, at first there are radical levels, then you can speak about special details.”

Joseph Beuys

Quoted in: Robert C. Morgan (1978). The Role of Documentation in Conceptual Art: : An Aesthetic Inquiry. p. 176.
1970's, I Am Searching For Field Character,' 1973/74

Art , Thinking

“Yes, now we are at the starting-point again. Now we are at our real issue: that we understand ourselves first as sites of education, for information for democracy, for tree-part structure, and so on.”

Joseph Beuys

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

Education , Democracy , Understanding , Tree

“I wished to go completely outside and to make a symbolic start for my enterprise of regenerating the life of human kind within the body of society and to prepare a positive future in this context… I can see such a use for the future as representing the really progressive character of the idea of understanding art when it is related to the life of humankind within the social body in the future.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote of Beuys, in Studio International Vol. 195, (1981), p. 46
1980's

Life , Art , Idea , Understanding

“I am interested in the creativity of the criminal attitude because I recognize in it the existence of a special condition of crazy creativity. A creativity without morals fired only by the energy of freedom and the rejection of all codes and laws. For freedom rejects the dictated roles of the law and of the imposed order and for this reason is isolated.”

Joseph Beuys

Quoted by Germano Celant, Beuys, tracce in Italia, Amelio, 1978
1970's

Law , Freedom

“I think he [ Andy Warhol ] would be very interested in the moment that the Dalai Lama appears, being involved in such a kind of idea. Andy has always difficulties with this kind of political activities, because he works in another kind of world, but he is always... Also when he was here [in Germany] last week, he is very interested to hear a lot of new information. He has a kind of observing sense in the back of his mind. So, he is always interested to follow the development, and there is really a kind of imaginative process going on, I think.”

Joseph Beuys

Source: 1980's, Interview with Louwrien Wijers, 1981, p. 189 - in 'Joseph Beuys and the Dalai Lama'

World , Imagination , Idea , Thinking

“This is precisely what the shaman does in order to bring about change and development: his nature is therapeutic.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote of Donald Kuspit, The Cult of the Avant-garde Artist, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 95
Quotes after 1984, posthumous published

Nature , Change

“I believe that planting these oaks is necessary not only in biospheric terms, that is to say, in the context of matter and ecology, but in that it will raise ecological consciousness-raise it increasingly, in the course of the years to come, because we shall never stop planting.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote of Joseph Beuys (1982), as cited in: Land and environmental art, Jeffrey Kastner, ‎Brian Wallis (1998), p. 164 - about his 7.000 Oaks [see there the image].
1980's

“This is why we believe that a well-ordered idea of ecology and professionalism can stem only from art – art in the sense of the sole, revolutionary force, capable of transforming the earth, humanity, the social order etc.... Art is, then, a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change in the sense of completing the transformation from a sick world to a healthy one. In my opinion only art is capable of doing it.”

Joseph Beuys

1980's
Source: Times Thermic Machine, 1982

World , Art , Idea , Sense

“Fat' traverses the path from a chaotically dispersed, undirected energy form to a form. Then it appears in the famous fat corner.... now [a wedge of fat in the angle between seat and back of the wooden old Chair, Beuys used in the fat-sculpture, like 'Stuhl mit Fett' (Fet Chair), 1964] intersects the human body in the region that houses certain emotional forces”

Joseph Beuys

Beuys laughed, and so did everyone else of the public
In a public debate at the Kunstring (Artcircle) Folkwang in Essen, 1972; (Stachelhaus 1991, p. 71); as quoted in Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing, Victoria Walters, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 29
1970's

Appearance , Housing

“My intention: healthy chaos, healthy amorphousness in a known medium which consciously warmed a cold, torpid form from the past, a convention of society, and which makes possible future forms.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote of Donald Kuspit, The Cult of the Avant-garde Artist, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 93
Quotes after 1984, posthumous published

Past , Future

“I was invited to come here to speak about my idea of art, which is to enlarge the effectivity of art beyond the idea of art as coming out of art history — an art idea which contains the well-known disciplines like sculpture, architecture, painting, music, dancing, poetry and so on. I would like to declare why I feel that it's now necessary to establish a new kind of art, able to show the problems of the whole society, of every living being — and how this new discipline — which I call social sculpture — can realize the future of humankind. It could be a guarantee for the evolution of the earth as a planet, establish conditions for other planetarians too, and you can control it with your own thinking.”

Joseph Beuys

Source: 1970's, Joseph Beuys... Public Dialogue' 1974, p. 5; Lead paragraph of article

Feeling , Thinking , Idea , Problem

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote of Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), as cited in Joseph Beuys, exh. cat., Caroline Tisdall, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278
1970's

People , School , Art , Exercises

“I don't know what they call mysticism, it is in truth perhaps the interest of the spirit; that the work expresses the spirit, and not the formal aspect. While in the United States a lot of art production runs along the line of formalist art; what one could call the post-modernism, a kind of formalist intention like Don Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, and these.”

Joseph Beuys

Source: 1970's, Interview with Louwrien Wijers, 1979, p. 243; Also cited in: Louwrien Wijers (1996). Writing as Sculpture: 1978 - 1987. p. 38

Truth , Art

“My objects are to be seen as stimulants for the transformation of the idea of sculpture.... or of art in general. They should provoke thoughts about what sculpture can be and how the concept of sculpting can be extended to the invisible materials used by everyone.
THINKING FORMS – how we mold our thoughts or
SPOKEN FORMS – how we shape our thoughts into words or
SOCIAL SCULPTURE – how we mold and shape the world in which we live:
Sculpture as an evolutionary process; everyone an artist.
That is why nature of my sculpture is not fixes and finished. Processes continue in most of them: chemical reactions, fermentations, color changes, delays, drying up. Everything is in a STATE of CHANGE.”

Joseph Beuys

Beuys' quote from Theory of Social Sculpture, 1979, as cited in: Chris Thompson. Felt: Fluxus, Joseph Beuys, and the Dalai Lama. 2011. p. 88-89
1970's

World , Art , Color , Idea

“I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time. The oak is especially so because it is a slowly growing tree with a kind of really solid heartwood. It has always been a form of sculpture, a symbol for this planet.”

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys (1982), cited in: Claudia Mesch (2013) Art and Politics: A Small History of Art for Social Change Since 1945. p. 160
1980's

Thinking , Tree , Time

“Art alone makes life possible – this is how radically I should like to formulate it. I would say that without art man is inconceivable in physiological terms.”

Joseph Beuys

1960's

Life , Art

“We have to ensure that it is structured organically, so that it functions like a person functions internally, like the organs function... First in the examination of the matter. Secondly in that one develops a concept of.... a social order that have never existed before. That simply means: to realize freedom, democracy and socialism – free democratic socialism.”

Joseph Beuys

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

Democracy , Freedom , Personality

“My first concert - apart from Beethoven at School and Erik Satie at the opening of my exhibition in Kleve in 1960 - was at the gallery Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Dressed like a regular pianist in dark grey flannel, black tie and no hat, I played the piano all over – not just the keys – with many pairs of old shoes until it disintegrated. My intention was neither destructive nor nihilistic. 'Heal like with like' – similia similibus curantur – in the homeopathic sense. The main intention was to indicate a new beginning…. or simply a revolutionary act. This was my first public Fluxus appearance.”

Joseph Beuys

Quoted in: Joseph Beuys, Carin Kuoni. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man. New York, 1993, p. 128; Comment on his first Fluxus performance in 1963 'Heal like with like'.
1970's, Interviews with Caroline Tisdall, 1974 & 1978

School , Shoe , Sense , Appearance

“The idea of creativity is for me the problem of the future. Since the creative power is not a simple thing. It has a rich structure. It is divided into a lot of different principles and represented by figures, and these figures you can also write down in a kind of symbolic mantra. It is important to work on every point of creativity and see how the human being stands in the energy that comes out from the surrounding world.”

Joseph Beuys

Quote in a conversation between Lama Sogyal Rinpoché and Joseph Beuys, 1982; republished in: Joseph Beuys, Carin Kuoni. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man. New York, 1993. p. 197
1980's

World , Idea , Problem , Future

“For example, when we leave [The Documenta in] Kassel, a working group or maybe two working groups will work on things here at Kassel. We want to cause a snow-ball effect. We want to build a network throughout Europe that will work on these things, right? I can only say: we can only do it as well as possible.”

Joseph Beuys

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972