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AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN THE ART OF JOSEPH BEUYS

A comment on Hans Dieter Huber's "The Artwork as a System and its Aesthetic Experience" by Jean Baeck

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Aesthetic Experience in the Art of Joseph Beuys

The proposal attempts to show an amendment to the Identity, the Aesthetic Experience, in Beuys works which suggests that an ahistorical, spiritual meaning/interpretation is as inseparable from the aesthetic experience as the realm of the social and environmental are shown to be in Hubers' descriptive and interpretive application of the General System Theory.

Hubers' publication aims to contribute to a new vocabulary of interpretation and description (Para 2 Intro Huber) of the works of Joseph Beuys. The Identity in the first assignment is taken as the Aesthetic Experience which inseparable from the social realm Huber describes as occurring first to an individual representative member of the human community and then second to the whole community. (Huber Para 8 GST) For Huber, Beuys sets up the question whether the actions of man, his information, his informing character is a process of free decision, an expression of the freedom of that human being. The amendment identifies Beuys idea of a free being as a precondition for implementation of self determination and that that being has become free through his or her development, primarily through incarnation of the essence of Christ in the physical conditions prevailing on earth (Mennekes p 31) This signifies for Beuys personal and also collective resurrection. (p 35 Beuys - Talking about One's Own Country Germany)

Substance and incarnation have metaphysical meaning in Beuys interpretation of his work. The relationship of the Object to the Identity will include alternating or simultaneous meanings to the interpretive process proposed by Huber. The relationship of the Artefact to the Identity is altered through attention to the Actions an undeveloped function of the Artefact in Hubers' publication. The amendment also indicates a limitation in interpretation in Hubers publication by identifying meanings available in the use of the hare relating to the role of incarnation. The relationship of the Researcher to the Identity, following the amendment is to determine the importance of the ahistorical reality of the idea for Beuys in relation to spirit, matter and incarnation as part of the aesthetic experience.

The relationship of the Identity to the Explanation in Hubers' publication specifically aims to show how the general theory functions as a descriptive and explanatory tool in relation to Beuys work and aesthetic . Although it provides a sophisticated vocabulary for enabling information exchange and communication on a broad base, a critical feature of Beuys aesthetic, it has limitations for interpreting the Researcher/Beuys meanings on spirit, matter and incarnation in the realisation and functioning of the extended art concept.

An Amendment to the Identity

The Aesthetic Experience in Beuys work cannot be excluded from the environment and/or present social systems, in Hubers' publication as the artwork functions as a trigger for the shaping of thoughts about contemporary life/society, a stated aesthetic strategy of Beuys. Constitution of aesthetic meaning stresses that the ..works of Beuys are explictly designed for and concerned with an exchange of energy from the sculptural system into the social environment, first to an individual representative member of the human community and then to the whole community. (Huber Para 7 GST)

In the description of Beuys, Crucifiction (1962/3), objects and things are seen to make up the semantic elements of the artwork, defined by labelling through verbal concepts. Once the beholder names an object or element with a linguistic concept, this element functions as an instance of that concept. eg. Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist function alternatively from the semantic field of a biblical story or hospital containers for blood. (Huber Para 1,2,3, System Theory & Beuys works). This identification, highly effective as a descriptive tool facilitates no metaphysical interpretation. Beuys keeps insisting on the fact that his art object and dramatic performance activities have a "metaphysical" meaning, transcending their actual concretion and material appearance, within their proper discourse. He quite outspokenly refers to the antihistoric, religious experience as a major source and focus for his art production. (Buchloch p 40)

Where for Huber, Beuys poses the question of whether the actions of man, his informing character, (to give something form), is a process of free decision - the point at which the sculptural process is addressed for Beuys freedom is a necessary precondition for self determination in order to participate fully in the expanded art concept. Only when the resurrection is brought about by man himself. (Mennekes p 31) The character of self determination is thus the most elemental force, providing the only lever for shaping society. (Neville p 42)

This confirms the significance of a connection between a tranforming spiritual experience and creative participation in the expanded art concept as an intended aim of Beuys. The Object relates to the Identity through the form of the Social Sculpture, in which Beuys calls for a radical widening of the definition of art as a means of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART (p. 903 Harrison Wood). Not included in Hubers account but also in this document This is the concept of art that carries within itself not only the revolutionizing of the historic, bourgois concept of knowledge (materialism, positivism), but also of religious activity establishing the inclusion of a transforming religious experience as integral to the aesthetic experience, fully realised when individuals participate creatively in the The Social Sculpture.

In a number of instances, in dialogue and through his art Beuys stressed the idea of substance and revolved around themes of the wound, incarnation, resurrection and healing. Huber models the work Alarm 11 as an instance of how the experience acts to shape thoughts about the present environment and social systems. In Hubers' publication Alarm 11 is an instance of the way in which the work as a whole acts as a trigger for the aesthetic experience in which the beholder must work hard to constitute meaning via the semantic context in which the object normally functions. Through this activation of the semantic context of the elements, their history as a history of linguistic use becomes available for epistemic appraisal. However, the layer of interpretation in which the aesthetic experience included the transformative concepts of substance and incarnation integral to Beuys works has not emerged. Hubers' use of substance is as physical material and its compositional nature. Huber has not dealt with Beuys Actions, and in Capital Space the Relics of Actions are the least experienced element in his account.

General theory is applied to more complex works with increasing individual participation in the social sphere. It is increasingly time and space extended. The works Capital Space, Honeypump and 7000 Oaks carry interpretation in which the social and environmental aesthetic are evident. The extended meanings available in Beuys works relating to spirit and matter and regarded as important to Beuys are not as easily available for interpretation.

Towards the end of the 1950's, Beuys critical formative period, the Christian element in his works combined with natural force of cosmic dimensions. This was for Beuys an important transition across the threshold. ( Mennekes p 30) The period that followed saw Beuys involvement in Actions: In that period the Christian element played an absolutely central part. It was already there in the first Action - JB (Mennekes p 30)

In Beuys first public Fluxus Action Festorum Fluxorum Fluxus - Staatliche Kunstakadamie Dusseldorf, the second night (February 4th 1963) Beuys says of Siberian Symphony Section 1. It contained the essence of all my future activities ....There was a Rosicrucian or at least a spiritual intention in this, though it probably would have been invisible even to Rosicrucians (Tisdale p87 - 8)

In Beuys First Public Fluxus Action The true foundation of Aktion Art is the element of movement...The form in which this embodiment of Christ takes place in our time is the element of movement as such, the person who is moving ie. not dead. Beuys continues It is the principle of resurrection, transforming the old structure.....That is the expanded concept of art (Mennekes/Beuys p 33) Like the Theory of sculpture, such an action is based on the tension and movement between the poles of chaos and form, warm and cold, the representation of birth as material incarnation. (Tisdale p 88)

Of his use of the hare, Beuys states What I wanted to achieve with the hare and which came forth for the first time at this concert was a contextual reference, to birth and death, to shocking the public ..(Adriani p 92) This and following actions aimed at something more, at birth as a sculptural materialisation that begins with the incarnation and ends with the death and then begins again. (Adriani p 93)

When I use the hare, which appears here for the first time in the flesh....(it is) the expression of transformation through material of birth and death. (Tisdale p 88)

In 1965 How to Explain Picture to a Dead Hare Schnella Gallery Dusseldort Nov 26th a work of central significance for Beuys, in his use of the hare, Beuys states: the hare has a direct relation to birth...For me the hare is a symbol of the incarnation. The hare does in reality what man can only do mentally. The hare incarnates himself in the earth and that itself is important...Or so I see it. (Adriani p 132) During an interview at the 1979 Retrospective Beuys enigmatically refers to himself as the hare. Questioned as to who he is, Beuys replies: My name is Joseph Beuys - that is the hare you know, this is stated simply, unpretentiously. The felt hat a natural material built up of layer upon layer of animal hair, rabbit (or hare) being the best (Tisdale p 74), together with fat and copper and iron were among the central materials in his aesthetic, operating variously as transmitters of energy, heat, life, used originally as symbols perhaps but seen increasingly as simply substances: Beuys referred to this earlier in the interview.

I wouldn't call them symbols anymore, forms, simply forms and substances.... we are forms and forms consist of a special constellation of substances.. Of great significance to Beuys was the ability to see ideas, to evaluate the degree of reality of the ideas rather than their place in intellectual history (Koepplin p. 119), and the idea of substance contains meanings of materialism and incarnation.

Hubers model is not well suited to eliciting the autobiographical layers or networks of personal meaning that Beuys attached to the elements, properties and objects that function in Hubers model. The Researcher Beuys appears for Huber as an artist for whom German art scholars still have difficulty in comprehending. The specific nature of his artistic conception and its aesthetic effectiveness A new descriptive vocabulary, is needed which is not dependant on traditional concepts such as unity, integrity, harmony, proportion, composition which in the case of Beuys are of limited assistance. (Huber Para 1 Intro). The amendment seeks to find inclusions of a potent metaphysical meaning in the interpretation.

Beuys early childhood in Cleves a Celtic and Catholic enclave in a Germanic and Protestant country was also extraordinarily rich in geological and cultural history. The community had Celtic roots and maintained a strong Catholic tradition. (Tempkin p 12 and Tisdale p10) Prior to service in WW11 a transforming experience occurred for Beuys when he saw a picture of one of Wilhelm Lehmbrucks' sculpture Beuys: It was as if that picture was telling me - Everything is sculpture - And in the picture I saw a torch, I saw a flame, and I heard the words: Protect the flame! (JB p. 57) This experience accompanied Beuys throughout the war led him afterwards to an understanding of sculpture. For Beuys, Lehmbrucks work touched a threshold situation within the concept of sculpture and comprehended a sculpture with categories that had never previously existed. Pursuing lines of thought from the listening element in Lehmbruck's sculpture and in their meditative aspects Beuys thought of a sculptural form which could comprehend both physical and spiritual material, the idea of the social sculpture (JB p 60).

Two weeks before his death Beuys publicly (2) expressed gratitude to Lehmbruck for opening the way for his life work, one in which the spiritual element was central to the aesthetic experience.

The explanation of a new descriptive and interpretative method is a model that permits an interdisciplinary and problem oriented approach and has value in recognising that for Beuys the purpose of his work rested on his belief that forms existed principally as a vehicle for his ideas for the Social Sculpture.

The amendment looks for a closer understanding of the reality of ideas for Beuys. Drawings for Joseph Beuys were perhaps the most critical area of his production. Speaking of Kadmon (1948-9) Beuys states For me these drawings are closer to reality than are other forms of so called reality. This meant that ideas given form in his work were not symbolic but real. Towards the end of the 1950's Beuys drawings included Christ: Crucified, Victorious, Resurrected. This is a highly formative period for Beuys and one in which he undergoes an acute physical and emotional collapse and they are the signal years of his development. (Temkin p 14)

The significance to the background is that Hubers general system an excellent descriptive and potential as an interpretive tool is not a tool which is reliable as an indicator of what the artists intention is likely to have been. Beuys promoted those aspects of his work, most likely to be understood or received at the time. Tailoring a suitable explanation. It is fair to assume that his ideas fundamentally the same, and fixed early in his career were adapted over time. Audience reaction to his works appears to have polarised the scientific and spiritual interpretations at different times, nevertheless the ability of his work to contain such a breadth of potential, and the richness of his personal language indicate that the aesthetic experience is one which cannot be separated from the social but contains the spiritual as a fully incorporated dimension as well.

It seems likely that Beuys constructed from a template of a Christian ideas and forms which remained a fertile source for his metaphysical and scientific questions and challenges to entrenched thoughts and ideologies.

Bibliography

• Beuys Joseph "I am Searching for a Field Character" "Art in Theory An Anthology of Changing Ideas" Ed. Harrison & Wood Blackwell 1992
• Beuys Joseph - Talking about One's Own Country: Germany (p35 - 55) Wiegand Winnifred Trans. Timothy Neville "Joseph Beuys: In Memorium Joseph Beuys: Obituaries, Essays, Speeches" Bonn 1986
• Beuys Joseph - "Thanks to Wilhelm Lehmbruck" Wiegand Winnifred Trans. Timothy Neville "Joseph Beuys: In Memorium Joseph Beuys: Obituaries, Essays, Speeches" Bonn 1986
• Buchloch Benjamin H. D. "Joseph Beuys - The Twilight of the Idol" Artforum January 1980
• Götz Adriani, Winnifred Konnertz & Karin Thomas (translated by Patricia Lech) "Joseph Beuys. Life and Works" Woodbury New York 1979
• Huber Dieter The Artwork as a System and its Aesthetic Experience. Remarks on the art of Joseph Beuys Ed. by Thorsten Scheerer and Klaus Dieter Schonfeldt. Published by Athena - Information Providing Service, Mannheim - Furtwangen Heidelberg on http://home.pages.de/~athena/in |April 1997
• Koepplin Dieter "Joseph Beuys "Secret Book for a Secret Person in Ireland" Ed. Heiner Bastian (Munich 1988)
• Koepplin Dieter "Joseph Beuys "Secret Book for a Secret Person in Ireland" Museum Modern Art Oxford (Eng) 1974
• Koepplin Dieter - Kadmon: An Early Drawing by Joseph Beuys "Thinking is Form The Drawings of Joseph Beuys" Thames & Hudson 1993
• Mennekes Friedhelm - Joseph Beuys in Conversation with Friedhelm Mennekes (p29-34) Wiegand Winnifred Trans. Timothy Neville "Joseph Beuys: In Memorium Joseph Beuys: Obituaries, Essays, Speeches" Bonn 1986
• Pachter Henry M "Magic into Science. The Story of Paracelsus" N. Y. 1951
• Schiller Friedrich "On the Aesthetic Education of Man" Ed. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & LA Willoughby Oxford 1987
• Sontag Susan The Aesthetics of Silence "Styles of Radical Will" 1969 N. Y.
• Tisdale Caroline "Joseph Beuys" (New York) 1979
• "The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790-1990" Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Edinburgh 1994 Howard Gallery South Bank Centre London 1995
• (VHS) Halpern John "joseph beuys transformer" 235 Media Koln on the 1979 Guggenheim Retrospective