ELECTRONIC TEXT

"EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST" | "JEDER MENSCH EIN KÜNSTLER"

Joseph Beuys and existentialism, by Lisa Brown and Thorsten Scheerer

Beuys, Nietzsche and Sartre

Hello,

You seem to know a lot about Joseph Beuys so I was wondering if you could help with a brief question.

I'm doing a dissertaion on the notion of decay and change in society and the effect that it has had on contemporary art. I'm doing a chapter on Beuys and the part he played in the development of modern art and how and why he made it possible to use decay in art. It's going quite well but I'm stuck on one bit concerning his statement 'Everyone is an artist'. Is this statement an existentialist one or not? I've read some things that suggest it is and some otherwise. In Existentialism and Humanism by JP Sartre writes how people first exist then create their own essence, in this way we are all artists, similar to what Beuys said (except that Sartre used it as a metaphor and Beuys used it as a literal statement.)

I was quite happy with this thought and its validity but then I saw on your site how Beuys believed in the spirit first and then physical existence coming after.

I know Beuys was influenced by Nietzsche but I thought Nietzsche and Sartre had similar beliefs.

I realise that you need to know a lot about Nietzsche and existentialism to answer my question so I understand if it's not possible but I'd be very grateful of an yhelp you can give to clear up my confusion.

Thankyou very much,

Lisa Brown

Creating the Social Sculpture

Hello!

Beuys is surely not a Sartre follower but of course there are many parallels. Most of all: the keyword "creation".

But Beuys did not mean "creation" with regard to the very own existence. The sentence "Jeder Mensch ein Kuenstler"/"Everyone is an artist" is likely one of the most often misunderstood sentences in (art) history. It does not mean that everyone is as artist (literal). Also it does not mean that everyone has the ability to become an artist that creates scultpures, paintings, music ... Furthermore it does not mean that the kind of creativity that is reflected in the word "artist" is something everybody obtains just by being a human being.

The context in which Beuys said "Everyone is an artist" is that in every society many questions and problems arise. Sometimes they are big and might have general impact (Shall we got to war? Shall we increase taxes?), sometimes they are small and a matter of private life (Shall I marry this woman? Shall I take the train or a plane?). And no matter if we are scientists, politicians, workers, children, musicians, painters ... WHAT WOULD SUIT/LOOK/FEEL BEST? -- We always ask for the BEST POSSIBLE FORM we could apply to the current situation.

And to look for the best possible form is the most central question in art. From a more general point of view it is a question of aesthetics: good - true - beautiful. (E.g. see Schleiermacher)

With regard to that everyone is an artist, because everyone tries to find the most applicable form - in private as well as in public life. In the best case, everybody tries to come up to the expectations reflected in the criteria "good, true, beautiful". And by making decisions - or drawing distinctions, as Niklas Luhmann put it^* - everyone generates impacts on the social environment.

This social environment has "a form" to. It is the Social Sculpture everyone works on just bei being there. The old statement of Watzlawick/Beavin/Jackson: "You cannot not act" means, that already just by being there you get reconized by the environment. So everyone is responsible for a (smaller or larger) part of the sculpture and therefore should be responsible to arrange himself in relation to the others in a way, that lets the interactions in society lead to a "best possible form".

At this point, you might also think of "the best of all possible worlds" (Leibniz), allthough Beuys made no allusions to it.

Kind regards,

Thorsten Scheerer