As some of you may know, I spent the weekend at the
Scooterist Meltdown at Kalkar in Germany. 1500 Scooterboys/girls & skins
partying at a decommissioned nuclear powerplant cum all inclusive Vegas-kitsch
holiday park was well worth the 14 hour drive each way so I’ll start with a
couple of photos of that…
Ok, but this is an art blog, right? By happy coincidence, on
the other side of town is the Schloss Moyland.
The castle holds the archives of local boy done good, Joseph
Beuys. The gallery holds around 4,000 works and letters dating back to the late
1940’s and in addition to a permanent collection runs themed collections of
Beuys work. The current exhibtion is Joseph Beuys and the Swan (This starting
to feel like an omen!)
Unfortunately I couldn’t get any pictures inside but I think
we all have at least a working knowledge of his oeuvre (if not click here) so
I’ll just leave you with my thoughts and reflections.
1, I’m not super interested in his drawings, too many look
like pages torn from sketchbooks. I can see some value in exhibiting them to
trace the development of his personal iconography but that’s about it. I got
the feelings that the drawings go a long way to making up the 4,000 works!
2, I realised that I am far more interested in the idea of
Beuys/the ideas of Beuys than any particular work he made. That’s not to say I
didn’t enjoy the exhibition. Maybe this fits in with his ideas of social
sculpture?
3, I was reminded of something that Matthew Collings said in
conversation with Bob & Roberta Smith,
“His things only seemed to work if he was there in person,
being a shaman”
I felt that the exhibition had more of a museum vibe than a
gallery feel. The works were presented more as artefacts (a felt suit hanging
like a suit of armour for example) than as artworks in their own right. Maybe this is an inherent consequence of
presenting a record of transient performances or actions? Maybe it’s that I don’t
very often go to see the work of dead artists?
4, I really wish I could read German.
I've just realised that a lot of the above sounds a bit negative which isn't really true, I very much enjoyed seeing that much of Beuys' work across his whole career collected in one place and the setting was stunning too. Well worth a visit if you ever happen to be in Nord Rhine-Westphalia.
I'll leave you with a picture I drew a while ago for Manifesto...
Sam x
I’ve never actually heard of this place but will definitely look into going there, if I ever make it around that particular area of Germany!
ReplyDeleteBeuys is a challenging type of character and someone when focusing my attention towards the more broader terms of visual contemporary art at Uni was a hard man to decipher. Having now seen residues of his art works and performances and having read more about him and his oeuvre I agree with you in that the idea of him is more powerful then the work itself and I agree very much in these parts of his work merely reinforcing his legend.
Interestingly spent a couple of night in a hotel last week chatting to a guy who is a curator of unconventional and performance based visual art in Switzerland. We talked about the re-enactment of performance art and the conversation moved towards Beuys. He mentioned that when Beuys first started doing performances he made sure nothing was documented and never repeated but after he moved into a more academic and maybe even commercial side of art he started ringing up his friends from that period asking if they still had "that brush etc". I think he himself gradually began to recognise the importance of object holding traces of those events and could continue to play an important role in mythologizing what he did.
Kit