ELECTRONIC TEXT

JOSEPH BEUYS REVISITED

Linda Woodfield interviews Thorsten Scheerer

7000 Oaks

Linda Woodfield: Could you give me some more information on Beuys and his work, especially ideas on "7000 Oaks" "I Like America and America Likes Me [1974]", "The pack of 1969" and any ideas you have on his use of fat and felt in his works?

Thorsten Scheerer: From 1982 on, oaks have been planted all over Kassel, so the only way to get a correct impression of the sculpture is making a trip to Kassel. Photographs are only useful as documentation material. The number 7 is important, not only with regard to the documenta 7: This number has always been important in garden planning and city planning (There's a city in the US called Seven Oaks, e.g., in GB, too.) As you surely know, Beuys was working on the "Erweiterte Kunstbegriff" (augmented art concept), and he wanted 7000 Oaks to be a work of augmented art that really shapes a social environment people live in. In 1982, 7000 basalt columns were layed down on the place in front of the Fridericianum in Kassel, and next to each tree that has been planted, one of the basalt columns has been installed. The work was finished years after Beuys' death.

So 7000 Oaks is a time-sculpture. The growing trees show the _energetic_ principle "_chaos_->_movement_->_form_", while the stones symbolize the stored, cold, _crystalline_ form.

It's the _principle of warmth_ that the trees represent, and this is the principle of _thinking_ we should become aware of, according to Beuys. He derived this from the physics' _thermodynamics_. The crystalline form represents our current exact thinking, our culture of countable materia and quantities - a culure of death. It's a kind of "Energy Plan For The Western Man" to demand a principle of warmth, a plan to survive - or to be exact, to rise.

Woodfield: I recently asked you for pictures of "7000 Oaks". Do you have any by now?

Scheerer: Pictures of "7000 Oaks"... still working on... the latest news: Yeah, Athena actually has pictures of 7000 Oaks, made a few years ago, cruising through Kassel for a few days on the search for 7000 trees..., but the problem we currently have is the question "Who owns the f***ing copyright?" - never forget: It may be trees, but it's a work of art..!

What we know by now: First, we know where the trees stand - we have a site plan. Second, we know who currently takes care for the trees: the private owners, a Buergerverein, and the city of Kassel. The city owns 5500 of the trees. So the next insanely great question is: Which ones..? We're gonna hold the line...

I Like America and America Likes Me

I'm sure you know Caroline Tisdall's texts about this performance and "Coyote", so just a short comment and many questions: In my opinion, most important with regard to "survival" is the way he was moved from Kennedy Airport to the Gallery René Block and vice versa. At the airport, Beuys was wrapped in _felt_ and moved to the gallery in an _ambulance_. The coyote that was waiting for Beuys in the gallery is a symbol for the American Western Man. Some questions do occur: Beuys wanted to live with and communicate with the coyote for a certain period of time. But why the ambulance: Is it emergency? Do we have to hurry to get there? Is there a secret we should know about? And why the felt: Is the European Man wounded? Does he need shelter? Can the coyote heal him?

Obviously not, because Beuys was moved back to Kennedy Airport the same way he was moved to Rene Block... So was he told a secret that enables him to heal his wounds by his own? Why isn't he able to stay in America? He has to hurry to get back to Europe... Is this the only place where his meeting with the coyote will come to a conclusion? Must he tell other people in Europe what the Western Man taught him?

Questions are more important than answers.

The Pack

Sleds are moving out of the back door of a Volkswagen bus, each of them carries a roll of felt, a lump of fat, and a flashlight. The drive of the Volkswagen that is a product of _natural science_, an internal combustion machine, made of steel, a shaped _crystalline_ material, has come to a _stillstand_. The only way to get ahead is to use a sled. But it seems to be a dangerous project. We're in the darkness and have to find our way with flashlights, and we have felt with us that may give us shelter and fat that may heal our wounds.

The Volkswagen is important, too: First, it's direction is opposite to the sleds', but it ain't possible to get any further with it. Second, the Volkswagen is a democratic product, a "car for the people" (an invention of Hitler - a _very_ German topic). Looking at "The Pack", we see no signs of human beings, but this Volkswagen bus leads to the conclusion that it is each and every one of us who's involved. The most important fact now is that a driver, a leader, a single Fuehrer who shows the way has become obsolete, a subject of history, as well as political parties who lead the people. _Everyone_ has to be it's _own_ leader, on his own sled...

Joseph Beuys and his works

Woodfield: Besides Matare' and his wartime and post war experiences who else influenced Beuys?

Scheerer: Rudolf Steiner, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Karl Marx.

Woodfield: Was his work for himself?

Scheerer: "Arbeit ist immer Arbeit fuer andere" (Labour is always labour for other people) said Beuys.

Woodfield: Social context influencing him - It seems his work was an out pouring of his ideals. Was he physic?

Scheerer: Yes, in a certain kind of way, but he also was very interested in natural science. As a teenager he made many experiments, and after school he wanted to study a natural science. Beuys called it the "exact natural science" and even as an artist he demanded that thinking should be done in the same accurate ways as natural science.

Woodfield: Was he considered to be terribly peculiar?

Scheerer: Most people think that artists are terribly peculiar... :-) In fact, a friend of mine who was a friend of Beuys in the 80s told me that Beuys was just a regular guy.

Woodfield: I think I admire his ideals more than his actual works.

Scheerer: Why? What do you mean with "ideals" and "actual works", Linda? Do you see there any difference? Thinking is plastic..!

Woodfield: He does not fit a particular movement but uses them to fulfill his needs (performance and Social Context). Is this so?

Scheerer: I'd rather say that Beuys was an excellent beholder: In the arts should be done what is necessary to be done, and any kind of movement is a sign for a certain necessity. This is what artists should do when working with regard to society: Being a beholder, deciding what has to be done, and actually doing it - a question of politics:

"Ich will nicht Kunst in die Politik hineintragen, sondern die Politik zur Kunst machen."
(I do not want to take art into politics, but transform politics into art.)

(Beuys in: Kandidat fuer die naechste Bundestagswahl, Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, 7.8.1976)

But after all, Beuys stood in the tradition of movements, too: The European culture of Christianity and the development of modern arts.

Joseph Beuys and Henry Moore

Woodfield: Could I compare him as a sculptor with Henry Moore as two totally different artists with different aims and ambitions?

Scheerer: You could, but I'd prefer not to consider Beuys' understanding of (Social) sculpture as being different to what other artists have done (and still do), but as the consequence of art history. In fact, it's always the question for the most suitable form... If you want to shape steel, wood, or social components doesn't matter, I think. So in the end, Henry Moore and Joseph Beuys may not be so different at all when talking about their approach in creating works of art. The difference lies in the materials they have used - and in the fact that Moore's works of art are among the most boring ones on earth...

How to explain pictures to a dead hare

Woodfield: How would you describe "How to explain pictures to a dead hare" (Galerie Schmela, Duesseldorf Nov. 26th 1965) with regard to Steiner's theory?

Scheerer: If you ask for "How to..." in the context of Steiner, there's one keyword: _thinking_.

But in my opinion Steiner is not as important when talking about Beuys as many other art historians think. Reason: In the most important topic, _thinking_, Steiner is not compatible to Beuys. So this may be a better solution: The hare is a symbol for man who has crucified himself by the exact natural sciences, because it sinks into the earth. As ancient myths and Steiner saw it, hares have a connection to the sky, the universe, but sinking into materia, below the surface, this connection is closed...

So the hare that is dead may actually be man who has commited suicide. However, the hare is held in the arms of a man (Joseph Beuys sitting on a chair) and both are surrounded by pictures. Beuys' head is covered with honey and gold leaf is put on it (a kind of golden mummy), and looks at the hare. He stands up and walks through the room, holds the hare close to the pictures, seems to communicate with it and sometimes interrupts his guided tour to cross a withered pine tree that lies in the gallery.

You may concentrate on the following keywords, Linda:

(mummy) honey	stored energy
gold	sun
to protect	Holding a dead hare in the arms.
silence	Communication without words, but looking at works of art.
to walk	There's a way to go, in the arts, too...
border	A withered pine has the appearance of _crystalline_ materia - the border that has to be _crossed_.

Woodfield: I find it hard to understand the interpretations of "How to explain pictures to a dead hear". In my mind I'm OK with it but I have trouble verbalising it. I'd not realized about the pine tree in this performance until you mentioned it. It feels like Zen every thing having ying and yang.

Scheerer: It's about crossing a border. The border I described in my e-mails to Karen Achten, the drawing "Evolution"...

When it comes to verbalising it, I feel the same way you do. The problem is language: The best possible language to choose is German when working on Beuys, because of the philosophical tradition. Many German words that have a certain meaning and do occur in certain contexts since hundreds of years just don't have any counterpart in English that expresses really what is meant. For this reason, I'd also prefer to use the German expression "Erweiterter Kunstbegriff" even in English texts, instead of the one possible translation "augmented art concept - this as an example.

But to give you some words that may be useful in describing works and performances of Beuys: The best is always to describe the character of the materials Beuys used - fat, felt, honey... Furthermore there are rhythm, movement, stillstand, to cross, the cross, crystalline, chaotic, organic, fractal.

Joseph Beuys vs. Rudolf Steiner

Woodfield: Can you clear this up for me? Steiner's vs. Beuys' ideas.

Scheerer: The reason why I do not think that it is useful to connect them - allthough Beuys always refered to Steiner's ideas, and I seem to be the only art historian that has this point of view - I may be wrong but I'm never in doubt... - is Beuys drawing "Partitur fuer Dieter Koepplin": The process how an idea comes to form is shown from left to right.

Steiner described this process from top to bottom. He used Newton's physics - words like gravity - to explain it. But with Albert Einstein gravity became obsolete and replaced by inertia. This forced Steiner to call Einstein an idiot in one of his lectures... I think it was April 26th 1926, but this is more than shaky.

However, who the idiot really has been - after Einstein and Heisenberg -, is obvious. And it is a _decisive_ difference if there's gravity or not! For the reason that "Partitur fuer Dieter Koepplin" is the mainframe of Beuys' works, it is expedient to admit the Beuys/Steiner-incompatibility, and I'd rather suggest to connect Beuys to Werner Heisenberg, or - to be totally up to date - to system theorists and constructivists like Ernst von Glasersfeld, Niklas Luhmann, and Humberto Maturana.

Shamanism

Woodfield: Certain movements or performances have an affect on the healing process - "I Like America and America Likes Me" and" Showing Pictures to a Dead Hare". Is this part of his belief of himself as a shaman? If so can I have information about his Shamanism.

Scheerer: Shamanism... Beuys clung to it with a twinkle... It's a kind of PR. Beuys loved the happy medium between being funny and serious at the same time. I don't like the idea to let Beuys become a mythical story, but the concept of the healing process is _very_ important - and not funny at all:

"Aber man hat ja kontinuierlich mit solchen traumatischen Zustaenden zu kaempfen [...]. Das ist das Wesen der menschlichen Natur. Wie Nietzsche gesagt hat: Der Mensch ist das kranke Wesen. [...] Der Mensch ist krank und kann krank sein; aufgrund seiner Freiheit greift er immer auf Gebiete ueber, die ihn gefaehrden."
(But one has continuously to contend with such traumatic situations [...]. That is the character of the human nature. As Nietzsche has said: Man is the ill creature. [...] Man is ill and can be ill; because of his freedom he reaches for fields again and again that endanger him.)

Beuys in June 1977 (Joseph Beuys, "Multiplizierte Kunst, Werkverzeichnis", edited by Joerg Schellmann and Bernd Klueser, 4th updated edition, pre-editions 1971/1972/1974, Munich, no page numbers. Title of the English edition: Joseph Beuys, Multiples)

Und davon handeln wir.