Sarenco interviews Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was an artist who talked. He declared that his basic programme was to "go beyond the silence of Marcel Du champ". In the course of his last ten years, Beuys' Dusseldorf studio, at Drakenplatz 4, was a source for hundreds of interviews that range from art to politics and from politics to economics. The man in the felt hat was concerned with "acting" as an artist, rather than with producing works of art, and his actions were all directed towards a concept of "social sculpture": a global project for the political and cultural transformation of Western and Eastern society through the use of art as an instrument of culture.
Sarenco My respect and esteem for your work has political and cultural roots that go very very deep. You're an artist with a personal commitment to a very precise idea (with your Organisation für Direkte Demokratie), and the price of your commitment is something that you've even had to pay for physically. How would you define the reasons that have led the public and private art market in Germany to give your work such a high level of support as to put you at the top of the classification published by Das Kapital as one of the most important artists in the world?
Joseph Beuys But at the beginning, the art market didn't exist for me at all. That's quite clear to me. My first shows didn't take place until I was more than forty years old. This means that I had to wait for quite a long time before obtaining any results or arousing any interest on the part of any individuals or art galleries or... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline