Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys (12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German Fluxus, happening and performance artist as well as a sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.

Joseph Beuys was born in Krefeld in 1921. From an early age, Beuys displayed a keen interest in the natural sciences and had considered a career in medical studies before volunteering for the Luftwaffe in 1940. On 16 March 1944 Beuys's JU87 plane crashed on the Crimean Front and Beuys later recounted how he had been rescued from the crash by Tartar tribesmen, who had wrapped his broken body in animal fat and felt and nursed him back to health.

Through his drawing practice, Joseph Beuys explored a range of unconventional materials and developed his artistic agenda, exploring metaphorical and symbolic connections between natural phenomena and philosophical systems. In 1962 Beuys befriended his Düsseldorf colleague Nam June Paik, a member of the Fluxus movement.

It was during the 1960s that Beuys formulated his central theoretical concepts concerning the social, cultural, and political function and potential of art. This translated into Beuys's formulation of the concept of Social Sculpture, in which society as a whole was to be regarded as one great work of art (the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk) to which each person can contribute creatively. Beuys founded (or co-founded) the following political organizations: German Student Party (1967), Organization for Direct Democracy Through Referendum (1971), and Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research (1974).

Beuys became a pacifist, was a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons, and campaigned strenuously for environmental causes. He died in January 1986 in Düsseldorf.