“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

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Joseph Beuys 50

German visual artist 1921–1986

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“Art is the only power to free humankind from all repression.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Source: 1970's, Joseph Beuys... Public Dialogue' 1974, p. 5

“Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the death-line: to dismantle in order to build 'A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

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“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.”

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“But there is only one thing that has power completely, and this is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.”

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Mittel Energie auszuüben und nur ihn anzuordnen der Energie besitzt kann sie ausüben. Dieser direkte Anschluß der Energie und der Richtlinie bildet die grundlegende Wahrheit aller Politik und den Schlüssel zu aller Geschichte.
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“Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man who has power is inclined to abuse it; he goes until he finds limits. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?.
To prevent this abuse, it is necessary that, by the arrangement of things, power shall stop power.”

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A government may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits.
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“The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.”

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