Beuys (2017) Movie Script
1
It's just like Hollywood here.
The anonymous viewer is back there, yeah?
I mean if you're...
Let's say you're standing
in front of a group of people.
Then it's best
to reach them all at the same time.
That's best.
You have an idea
of what's going on inside of people.
Some people are very good at that.
They have this special talent.
For example, they walk into a room
and can instantly sense
the inner questions of everyone present.
I mean it's...
There's been a lot of that.
That's it!
Beuys speaking.
Good morning, Mr. Beuys.
- Good morning.
Our colleague from Midday Journal
was speaking to Professor Joseph Beuys.
Mr. Beuys, hem popular
would you say you are?
How should! know?
What do you want me to say?
Do you wan! me {o say
"Force 12" or something?
Why not express it in wind force?
All right, so Yd say I've reached
{he end of {he scale,
about hurricane force.
And as you know;
storm comes before hurricane.
Mr. Beuys, thank you very much
and I wish you continuing success.
It was meant to be an event
and that's what it is.
A German event for New York.
Beuys is here and everybody knows it.
Joseph Beuys is exhibiling his art
at the Guggenheim Museum
and New Yorks press
is doing all it can to help explain it.
Hanging, lying and standing
on a 432-meter continuous ramp
is almost his entire output
of graphic art and sculpture.
Waiting upstairs
are the felt-covered piano from 1966,
as well as the "Fat Chair"
and the "Honey Pump."
"Forget the conventional idea of an.
Anyone can be an artist.
Anything can be an, especially
anything that conserves energy"
This is the shortcut formula for an.
The magazine Capital named him Number 1
in the international art business,
ousting Warhol and Rauschenberg
from the top positions.
When did they let him out of the hospital?
Do you know when?
It's like the remnants
of a construction site.
I was disappointed.
It was fascinating.
The felt piano was more accessible
than other objects.
For me, it's a new way
of thinking about art.
-...but it stays the same?
- That's right. You empty it.
You drink the contents and throw away
the cap. That's what's left.
But you're aware that you're moving away
from the traditional concept of art?
- Yes, of course...
- And you really don't care
that people say, "What Beuys is doing
has nothing to do with art."
- Or do you...?
- Of course I don't care.
An, yes,
but in a totally different sense.
The concept of what an is
has expanded to such a degree
that, for me, there's nothing left of it.
But within a comprehensive system
it's possible
that a traditional concept of art
might be able to keep its place,
in a hermetically sealed form.
It would circle around like an atom,
somewhere inside this system.
But the concept of art has been expanded
so far that every normal situation is art.
- Every situation or action...?
- Yes.
It's no longer an object
that you hang on a wall...
Now if one takes this position
of an expanded concept of art,
which is exactly my position anyway,
most people will regard it as esoteric,
insane, remote,
marginal, peripheral...
And so on and so forth.
That's obvious.
Mr. Beuys...
At last year's an fair in Cologne,
you exhibited a work
that consisted of a Volkswagen bus...
out of which are coming a large number...
Maybe 20, correct me if I'm wrong...
-40!
-...40 small sleds,
all of them exactly the same,
and I found it amusing.
- That isn't what I wanted to say...
- But that's good!
- No!
- But that's great! Why not?
But...
Do you want to stamp out laughter and fun,
to have a revolution without laughter?
I have a specific question...
I want to get my moneys worth
out of this revolution!
I believe you.
Is that...?
And I want others
to get their money's worth!
I believe you. But I want to ask you...
Why didn't you use baby buggies?
Why not?
Because I chose the subject.
You should do something with baby buggies!
And see if you can make something
that interests people!
Max Bill...
I agree with Mr. Beuys
that were here to think.
But it's not necessary
to think until daybreak.
So...
If we take what Picasso said,
"The purpose of an
is not to decorate our apartments,
it's a weapon against the enemy."
The question is: Who is the enemy?
Professor Gehlen, you said the boundaries
of an had expanded enormously
and that you no longer
feel provoked by art.
Do you feel challenged by his works,
or do you see his art, or anti-art,
as a stimulating element? Or...
What's my work got to do with anything?
It's irrelevant.
We're talking about a theory.
We're talking about something
far beyond my work.
Let's throw my work out of the window!
- And your work as well! Maybe...
- What is it you want?
I want to expand peoples consciousness,
especially regarding
the current political situation.
- Okay...
- I don't believe we live in a democracy.
I don't believe we're taught
to be free human beings
due to our party-political bureaucracy.
- I'm willing to provoke right now!
- Me, too!
First of all,
I want to return to the original topic.
If you want to expand
or change peoples consciousness,
you must know in which direction.
That's why I'm prepared
to talk until daybreak.
- No, tell us now!
- Aha, in one sentence.
Now!
People don't understand you?
I always say that people
understand me very well.
- But they're afraid of it?
- No.
But... But then we need to...
It's not a bad thing
if people get aggressive.
Let them be aggressive.
At least that gets you talking to them.
You have to provoke it.
Provocation always causes something
to come alive.
Maybe they smash their china at home.
Or maybe they call me up on the phone.
It always happens
after I've been on TV, "Idiot!"
- They call you at home?
- Sure, whenever I've been on TV.
"Asshole!"
Yes... Just a second...
For many people, an means
the freedom of randomness,
"Ah, art. I can do whatever I want."
But what's the point of art
if nothing comes of it?
So whenever people
ask me if I'm an artist,
I say, "Oh, cut the crap."
I'm not here to decorate
these foul, moldering, stinking systems.
I'm not an artist at all.
Except if we say
that everyone is an artist.
I buy into that, but only then.
I never said everyone is a poet,
a painter, a sculptor.
I mean social an
when I say everyone is an artist.
I find what you're saying to be
terribly abstract and intellectual...
No.
I'm talking about
the emergence of a new an
where everyone not only can participate
but must participate.
He was a totally reasonable person,
not at all strange or freakish.
To me he was always totally reasonable.
The opposite of what everyone else said.
"Crazy," "strange," "peculiar."
He was the first sane person I'd ever met.
He was totally sane.
And right after our first one-on-one
conversation at documenta, I knew,
"You can trust him completely."
I thought that was great.
It had nothing to do with his aura.
I just thought he was someone who was
surrounded and courted by people and...
And then he had this incredible,
instinctive self-assurance
and this penetrating gaze.
And...
And a really sharp mind.
You need both, otherwise there's no point.
You're just a dreamer.
But he wasn't.
He was and he wasn't at the same time.
I don't know how anyone can stand that.
He was totally consistent
in his words and actions.
FOR THE DOCUMENTA
7,000 OAKS
You're serious?
If I say I'm going to plant 7,000 oaks,
then I'm going to plant 7,000 oaks.
I think the project
will take at least three years.
Thank you, Mr. Beuys.
How would you help someone
who's dumbfounded by your work
to understand it better?
I would show him the two utensils,
a spoon and a fork
and invite him to eat the object.
During the 100 days of the documenta,
you're spending 10 hours a day
here in your office.
You speak with everyone,
you answer every question...
At the heart of the documenta,
several hectoliters of bee honey
pulsate through
an extensive system of veins.
Title." "The Honey Pump in the Workplace."
The 7,000 trees in Kassel
each have a rock,
so it's a tree monument.
Every tree has a kind of opposite pole.
The tree keeps growing taller,
the rock stays as it is.
I wanted to juxtapose these two things.
So that over the course of time...
the proportions change constantly.
AN IDEA IS TAKING ROO SET YOUR ROCK ROLLING
JOSEPH BEUYS: 7,000 OAKS
I'd like to talk a little more about
another one of your influences,
your biography, your life.
If I understand correctly,
it's more than just
a personal affair for you.
What does your personal story
have to do with your art?
Is your an as autobiographical
as is sometimes claimed?
You're originally from Kleve.
You're the son of a civil servant
who went on to own
a fertilizer business, I believe.
So you weren't really predestined
to be an artist,
especially not with your
family background.
That's right, I wasn't.
My parents would've preferred me
to work in the margarine factory in Kleve.
Why did they want you
to work in the margarine factory?
Because it was the easiest way
to get a good job,
because it was on a par
with being a civil servant.
My parents wanted me to go there
because they thought,
"Whatever will become of him?"
But he did say he felt like a stranger
in his parents' house.
There was something missing there.
He felt no warmth there,
not even toward his mother.
Not really...
Theirs was a purely
pragmatic relationship...
That's how I imagine it, knowing him.
But what he felt deep down,
that was something else.
He said that his parents
rather neglected him,
that they left him to his own devices.
But instead of being sad about it,
he was proud of it.
It says a lot about him.
That's normally seen as a flaw,
but for him it was a source of strength,
being left alone, being free,
going off into the fields.
Hasn't your appearance
also become something of a cliche?
- Your famous hat, for example?
- Yes.
Does the hat
have a protective function,
or is it simply a trademark?
It also has a protective function.
So you protect your head with it.
Yes, I protect my head.
You were seriously wounded
several times during the war.
- And you once...
- Correct.
-...crashed with your plane, in '43.
- Yes.
And you said,
"It's been drafty up there ever since.
- Actually, I've got a screw loose."
- Correct.
I also said that I was shot into shape.
Do you remember the crash,
or did it happen so quickly that...?
I remember the plane going down.
I said, "Let's get out, let's jump."
- So there were other people in the plane?
- Yes, one other man.
- And he died?
- There was nothing left of him.
Apart from a few pieces of bone,
everything was...
Yes, well...
I remember hearing
the voices of the Tatars.
I remember them finding me
and standing around me.
But then I lost consciousness.
All the things I remember happened
when I was only partly conscious,
because I didn't regain consciousness
for about 12 days.
When I came to,
I was in a German hospital in the Crimea.
ACADEMY O F ARTS
Beuys was a very slim,
very skinny young man...
with a face that you never forgot.
It was somewhat deform ed
as a result of one of the crashes.
He'd suffered a broken nose
as well as injuries to his skull.
And...
But he was a man with tremendous charisma,
who radiated a tremendous warmth.
KLEVE, FEBRUARY 28,1957
"After not having visited Beuys
for a long time, I called on him today.
He was going through another phase
of neither washing
nor putting on any clothes.
He's abandoning himself more and more,
as an artist too.
How often he weeps,
says he's going to leave,
go somewhere, forever."
It probably had something to do
with the fact that he was undernourished.
And also with his total lack of success.
In any event,
that was the...
That was the time
when he sank into the quagmire
of his own inner misery.
"The chief resident spoke
about the examination in Essen.
As I understood it,
he'd diagnosed Beuys as being incurable."
He stayed there all summer.
He stayed in my room,
and when he was...
When he was depressed,
he hardly responded.
And during the worst periods,
he hardly ever left his room,
not even for a meal.
And on his better days...
he'd spend the whole day outside with us
from morning till evening,
in the meadows or fields.
And then we told him he should
do something again, at all costs.
He said, "I'm finished with art.
I don't want anything more to do with it."
I said, "You can't carry on like this."
And then my mother went up to his room
and knocked on the door, "Mr. Beuys?"
But Mr. Beuys didn't want
to come out, and she said,
"I want to talk to you, open the door,"
which he did.
And then she appealed to his conscience.
And she told him that his gift
was also an obligation, a duty
toward the spirit
that had given him that gift.
After you graduated from art school,
you withdrew to the countryside
for ten years.
Yes, I didn't feel the need to be pan
of the contemporary an scene.
When did you decide
to start doing performance an?
I think it developed quite organically
from my aim to expand
the boundaries of art.
Beuys had to create a basis for himself
in order to overcome this crisis.
He needed a pedestal to stand on,
rather like the Archimedean point,
"Give me a place to stand
and I'll move the Earth."
But it was also a spiritual basis...
his theory of "social sculpture."
How he did that, it's something I...
"How is a figure, a form created?"
"Where does the form come from?
What is form?"
Yes, that's interesting.
Certainly, when I began...
And I'm referring to my drawings again...
I was actually... How can I put it?
I was feeling my way around.
I was groping about.
Almost as if I was in the dark,
you might say.
I had to touch something...
and often had to lay it down...
and examine it myself and see
if what I'd created
might be of interest to anyone at all.
But, above all,
whether what I'd created interested me.
My choice of materials doesn't initially
come from a painterly impulse,
it comes from the wish
to create sculpture.
These materials appeared at a time
when I was trying to break down the term
"sculpture" into its components.
And felt appeared as an insulating element
within the three configurations
of sculpture:
undetermined, determined and movement.
The simplest thing in the world,
when describing
the process of a production,
is called...
"undetermined starting point..."
"momentum" and "form."
FAT CORNER
Fat was the ideal material
for showing states of chaotic...
condition...
for showing movement
and the principle of form.
The principle of form appears
as a "fat corner" in a room.
In the fat, you have an ideal opportunity
to show the components of the sculpture
through the performance.
But I'm referring to sculpture
not as a static element,
but as a universal one.
I'd like to come back
to this idea of rationale.
If you make your "fat corners,"
for example...
Yes.
...then you think about
making them beforehand.
They don't appear on their own,
without a rationale, without thought.
The fat doesn't get
into the corner on its own.
Correct!
All right, that's what you think.
But I cant be so impatient.
Maybe you can allow yourself to be.
All I can say
is that it's no longer possible
to talk about sculpture
in a conventional sense,
as if one knew what it was.
"A sculpture is something
that stands there, like a coat rack.
It's spatial, you can put a hat on it..."
I've tried to apply the term to people,
so that the things I find in sculpture
I can find in people too.
That's right. You might laugh
and think how irrelevant that is.
But I've done it!
And now we come to another concept
that plays an important part.
I suggest that the first product
of human creativity is thought,
and that because of this,
thought itself is sculpture.
Thoughts affect the world.
THOUGHT = SCULPTURE
"FREEDOM"
Dsseldorf Academy of Arts.
A demon is destroying calm and order."
Joseph Beuys, professor and sculptor.
He uses the academy
to carry his ideas out into society.
Fundamentally,
every human being can be creative
if an opportunity is created
for him or her to be able to be creative.
That's the question
of equal opportunity in education.
Here, a professor
is putting his concept of art into action,
a concept that breaks out
of the aesthetic realm
and applies h: all areas of life.
You have to ask yourself how we've arrived
at this sorry state of affairs,
what's causing these ills?
We're forced to use
everything at our disposal.
In that sense, it looks like a...
Beuys' class had a high profile
and was very much tailored
to Beuys himself.
And I was one of the worst,
I was a true disciple of Beuys,
and that's the worst thing
that can happen at any art academy,
when, instead of wanting
to do their own thing,
the students fall into line
with a particular idea.
If that happens at an academy of art...
An is very sensitive in that respect,
because it stinks of ideology
from the get-go.
There certainly are people
who have a great affinity with my ideas,
but they aren't always disciples:
we work together.
Beuys was with us in the class
from morning till evening.
There had never been anything like it
at the academy.
When he was talking to someone,
critiquing their work, for example,
he always found a new point
that had to be worked on.
And you'd be thinking,
"Let's go get a coffee, for God's sake,"
but he'd go on and on.
Do you distinguish between Beuys
the artist and Beuys the teacher?
No, not at all.
And that's exactly
what's most important to me.
I've said again and again that...
that I see this kind of work
as a product of art.
Friday, April 28, 10:30 am.
Joseph Beuys outlines his latest project.
What I'd like to do is create a kind
of cultural center here in Dusseldorf
that can be interesting
for the whole world,
as a meeting point.
Then I'd like to create a second tier:
the permanent presentation of artists
from all around the world...
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no, no, no, no.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no, no, no, no.
Chinese artists,
Russian artists, Hungarian artists,
American artists, Finnish artists,
and so on.
So that we can overcome
the problem of the art market
by utilizing the time factor.
But there were some professors there
who took offense at Beuys.
Because, with his concept of freedom,
he'd hit a raw nerve
by, without necessarily wanting to,
making his colleagues look bad.
He'd hit a raw nerve by basically saying:
"You're artists, this is about art.
An is total freedom
and self-determination.
And what are you? Civil servants."
I want to draw people's attention
to misguided policies,
and I'm no longer interested
in causing trouble at the academy.
I want to inform people
about the true culprits in our system.
I want to inform and educate people.
That's the idea
people often laugh at me for:
"Can sculpture change the world?"
BOXING MATCH: JOSEPH BEUYS
&ABRAHAM DAVID CHRISTIAN
DIRECT DEMOCRACY VIA REFERENDA
The documenta was over,
and the new semester began the next day.
All the bigwigs from the government
of North Rhine-Westphalia were invited.
And Joseph Beuys stood up in front of them
and made a speech to them in grunts.
I don't think
it would've occurred to anyone to laugh.
It was too dangerous.
IS THIS THE CHOP
FOR ART PROFESSOR BEUYS?
EIGHT COLLEAGUES
MUTINYAGAINST HIM
(CONSTANT) TROUBLE WITH BEUYS
Students at the Academy of Arts
in Dsseldorf
demonstrate for one of their teachers,
Professor Joseph Beuys.
NO REPLACEMENT FOR BEUYS
How do you judge the general situation
at the academy?
It's pretty chaotic.
But we didn't cause this chaos,
it was those in authority
in the cultural bureaucracy.
Let's talk about what happened.
Along with 54 applicants
who'd been turned down by the academy,
you occupied its offices.
What did you hope to achieve by this?
I wanted to very calmly see to it
that these students,
who already attend my class,
should be enrolled.
On October 5, we were informed
that it was Professor Beuys' intention,
as of October 10,
to remain in the academys offices
for a prolonged duration.
The letter to Mr. Beuys, which was written
by proxy for the undersecretary,
had been agreed on by me, and in it,
it was pointed out to Professor Beuys
that, in spite of our sympathy
for his personal style,
we could not accept unlawful acts
and that his status as a state employee
was in question.
NO REPLACEMENT FOR BEUYS
The Minister for Science has dismissed you
without prior notice for "trespassing."
Do you think the Minister
will revoke your dismissal?
I don't think so. Maybe.
I'll leave it open.
He could at least have talked to me,
in my opinion.
Why let something happen
that resulted in huge effort and expense?
The police operation, for example?
Wouldn't it have been more economical
to talk to me?
What are your plans now?
You've been officially dismissed.
What do you think about that?
How do you feel now?
Like Don Quixote, whom?
No, not at all.
Or like...
Professor,
what are the main points of your dispute?
The cultural scene has been destroyed
to a large extent, again by Mr. Rau.
Due to his interference
in the Academy of Arts,
its development,
the creation of new ideas,
as well as the appearance
of foreign artists here in Dusseldorf
have been ruined. That's a fact.
Is it really so dramatic?
The accumulation of these events
results in a kind of experience
that makes you want to leave this city
as quickly as possible.
The question is...
Shall we take a short break?
What conclusions have you drawn from it
for your future?
I'm treating myself
solely through the character of my work.
I've proposed the theory...
I made a multiple:
"I Nourish Myself by Wasting Energy."
Yes.
Yes, that's my method.
BEUYS: FOR ME THERE'S NO SUCH THING
AS WEEKENDS
Joseph, do you think you've chosen
the right time to come to America
and talk about your ideas
on an and politics,
after turning down almost every invitation
from America in the last 10 years?
Would you like to smoke a cigar first?
Beuys could embolden you
the old-fashioned way: by example.
He had a vision. He wanted something.
We're really into step-by-step plans,
as you know.
So let's begin casually with step one.
Casually...
He was someone who saw
in every person a potential partner
for his ideas, for his ideas.
And he didn't care where someone
came from or what they'd done.
He said of himself that his attitude was,
"Give people time
and they'll come around."
Because I've now reached the point
where it's clear to me that I won't
put on the kind of exhibition in America
that's been the norm in the past...
and that there's
a lot of interest here now
in these complex ideas
with a political dimension.
I learned a huge amount from him,
including how to cope
with being insulted and reviled.
How to keep trying and trying again,
starting afresh.
And, of course,
he was attacked by many people
who didn't like the idea of an artist
interfering with social issues.
Beuys speaking...
Joseph Beuys, both venerated and reviled,
is running for parliament.
In 1971, he founded an organization
for direct democracy through referenda,
and he's totally serious
about his current election campaign.
Serious about, among other things,
bringing laughter into parliament.
- Would you like to become Chancellor?
- Pardon?
- Pardon?
- Would you like to become Chancellor?
Sure.
Sure, why not?
Yeah, that's the way it is...
Tonight we're going to discuss the chances
and limits of politicization through art.
If I could determine what is,
then I could quickly agree with you.
I don't want to keep determining what is,
I want to get an idea
of what might be desirable for people.
You talk about innovation as if no one
had ever thought of it before...
You're just insinuating that...
Then let me speak for five minutes.
You won't commit yourself.
That's your unbridled liberalism.
That's no use to political activists.
- My desire for freedom.
- Fine, I'd call it something else.
But let me talk
about Beuys' political praxis.
I believe the term "politics,"
as it's used currently,
is what's preventing genuine change.
Joseph Beuys, you're Germany's
most controversial artist.
But you're also a member
of the Green Party.
Are you serious about that?
Of course. You have to achieve things
via a future-oriented movement.
The conference is open!
I would like to point out
that the process of forming opinions
is incredibly laborious
for a young party such as ourselves.
Beuys really didn't need that.
He got him self involved
with the formation of a party
and with everything
that went along with that.
You wouldn't believe what torture that is.
Especially in the case of a party
that isn't a party,
where everything's totally haywire.
I repeat: no one is being rejected!
You had nature lovers
colliding with hard-core Marxists.
Then there were die-hard Nazis
who had somehow become acceptable
because of their holistic philosophy.
And then there were the left-wingers
from Hamburg.
Beuys dove right in.
We'll have to keep working with it,
of course.
It won't stop you from continuing
to work with the Greens.
No, it won't stop me.
He really believed in that movement,
in the founding of the Green Party,
and Beuys said:
'We've witnessed a historic day today."
He was so certain
that it was the anti-party party.
A Green Party program?
A Program?
- Green Party program?
- Thanks.
How about you?
Maybe he'll give us his autograph.
- I think more of you as an artist.
- Hold on! What do I get in return?
Will you vote for the Green Party
if I draw a picture for you?
Casual elegance reigned at Dsseldorf
gallery Denise Rene last night.
And men he came: Andy Warhol, pale, shy,
constantly searching for Joseph Beuys,
who was nowhere to be seen.
Joseph Beuys, who we're still waiting for,
has become such a politician
that he knows how
to make a dramatic entrance.
I remember driving back
from Brussels with him one time.
And I said...
Because we were all very tired,
we'd started out from Brussels
at five or six in the morning,
and during the journey back he said,
"I've got to get back,
I can't stop for long."
So we took a lovely photo of him
at a roadhouse,
on which he wrote,
"The Man at the Main Lever."
And I think that's how he saw himself:
the man at the main lever.
Beuys speaking.
- Good morning, Mr. Beuys in Dsseldorf.
Morning.
Beuys speaking.
Who called?
And during the journey he said,
"I've got so many appointments,
from now on I'll start
at four in the morning..."
- Four in the morning.
-"...or at five, or at six."
I thought,
"How long can anyone keep that up?"
Beuys speaking.
I don't have time at the moment.
It's wearing me out, but that's necessary.
Why is it necessary?
- Sorry?
- Why is it necessary?
- Why've you got to wear yourself out?
- Everyone has to wear themselves out.
It'd be bad if they were good
and died without wearing themselves out.
- Okay.
- Everything has to be used up anyway.
It doesn't matter
what profession you're in,
you have to wear yourself out.
You have to burn yourself down to ashes,
otherwise there's no point.
- If you're still good, that's bad.
- Then it's frustrating, isn't it?
"Everything's still so good!"
And then you kick the bucket, that's bad.
From this perspective, not from another.
- In which area are you laziest?
- Sorry?
In which area are you laziest?
- Laziest?
- Yes, laziest.
- Maybe I don't understand your question.
- I just said...
A time always comes when you're tempted
to retire from active life.
When you say, "Maybe it would be better
if I went to Australia."
That's not a joke.
Is it?
You mustn't retire.
I'm not going to. I'm not going to retire.
I'm not going to retire.
But if at some time I...
It really would be a historical disaster.
That's why I'm not going to retire.
I'm not going to retire at all.
But you're bound to say at some point,
"Kiss my ass!
I'm going to wander dreamily
around the world."
What would the alternative be?
The alternative would be to carry on
in a form where, to a certain extent,
you're well-known.
To stubbornly carry on
doing the same thing.
I can see Beuys's loneliness
and his incredible sensitivity,
his porousness, his...
That...
That he was always inside his wound,
inside his hurt.
And that makes you admire
this incredible strength even more,
which he used as an antidote,
his courage as well.
Mr. Beuys,
I don't want to mention your hat...
Mr. Beuys, you've now...
Mr. Beuys, what is art?
Beuys!
ONLY 2,272 DAYS
UNTIL THE END OF CAPITALISM
- Yes.
- Yes.
How to topple capitalism,
that's how I'd have to put it.
Yes.
LAST WARNING TO DEUTSCHE BAN K:
NEXT TIME WELL NAME NAMES AND IDEAS
- Mr. Beuys, are you a radical?
- Yes, I am.
A famous radical. Is that possible?
It would be good if radicals became famous
and people listened to them.
In '83, the Greens were going full steam
and for the first time
they had a real chance
of getting into parliament.
And no one understood why he kept
going on about the term "capital."
It was much too lofty,
even for the Greens.
And now I want to get
to the heart of the matter.
Because whenever a democratic process
dares touch the actual nerve
of societal change,
the power relations around money
undermine every attempt at democracy.
The power of money mus! be broken.
Today money is a tradable commodity
you can speculate with IT.
So in me economic sphere,
money is an entity
that shouldn't be a commodity
bu! because R is a commodity,
this character must be brought into line
with the whole of democracy.
We went to the conference
and didn't think anything of it.
We thought...
Because Beuys had been
the top candidate three years before.
And you sensed immediately
that the atmosphere was really peculiar.
Who's still interested in you?
- Who do you still provoke...?
- Quiet, please!
Could you be quieter, please?
And some of the delegates
really went after him.
"Beuys, go off and play with your fat!"
Or...
"Beuys, you're costing us votes."
Please be quiet in the hall,
or we can't hear anything up here.
We quickly figured out that the candidates
had already been selected.
It was clear he wasn't one of them.
He was being dropped by his own people.
There's no point in me standing up
in front of someone,
or in front of lots of people...
without there being a question.
What's the point
of just foisting an issue on people?
Because they might not
even be interested in it.
I have to speak in a way that I know
that there's something
inside of the people,
that there's a question
that I can try to answer, that I can try
to solve together with them.
It's actually a joint task.
It's just like Hollywood here.
The anonymous viewer is back there, yeah?
I mean if you're...
Let's say you're standing
in front of a group of people.
Then it's best
to reach them all at the same time.
That's best.
You have an idea
of what's going on inside of people.
Some people are very good at that.
They have this special talent.
For example, they walk into a room
and can instantly sense
the inner questions of everyone present.
I mean it's...
There's been a lot of that.
That's it!
Beuys speaking.
Good morning, Mr. Beuys.
- Good morning.
Our colleague from Midday Journal
was speaking to Professor Joseph Beuys.
Mr. Beuys, hem popular
would you say you are?
How should! know?
What do you want me to say?
Do you wan! me {o say
"Force 12" or something?
Why not express it in wind force?
All right, so Yd say I've reached
{he end of {he scale,
about hurricane force.
And as you know;
storm comes before hurricane.
Mr. Beuys, thank you very much
and I wish you continuing success.
It was meant to be an event
and that's what it is.
A German event for New York.
Beuys is here and everybody knows it.
Joseph Beuys is exhibiling his art
at the Guggenheim Museum
and New Yorks press
is doing all it can to help explain it.
Hanging, lying and standing
on a 432-meter continuous ramp
is almost his entire output
of graphic art and sculpture.
Waiting upstairs
are the felt-covered piano from 1966,
as well as the "Fat Chair"
and the "Honey Pump."
"Forget the conventional idea of an.
Anyone can be an artist.
Anything can be an, especially
anything that conserves energy"
This is the shortcut formula for an.
The magazine Capital named him Number 1
in the international art business,
ousting Warhol and Rauschenberg
from the top positions.
When did they let him out of the hospital?
Do you know when?
It's like the remnants
of a construction site.
I was disappointed.
It was fascinating.
The felt piano was more accessible
than other objects.
For me, it's a new way
of thinking about art.
-...but it stays the same?
- That's right. You empty it.
You drink the contents and throw away
the cap. That's what's left.
But you're aware that you're moving away
from the traditional concept of art?
- Yes, of course...
- And you really don't care
that people say, "What Beuys is doing
has nothing to do with art."
- Or do you...?
- Of course I don't care.
An, yes,
but in a totally different sense.
The concept of what an is
has expanded to such a degree
that, for me, there's nothing left of it.
But within a comprehensive system
it's possible
that a traditional concept of art
might be able to keep its place,
in a hermetically sealed form.
It would circle around like an atom,
somewhere inside this system.
But the concept of art has been expanded
so far that every normal situation is art.
- Every situation or action...?
- Yes.
It's no longer an object
that you hang on a wall...
Now if one takes this position
of an expanded concept of art,
which is exactly my position anyway,
most people will regard it as esoteric,
insane, remote,
marginal, peripheral...
And so on and so forth.
That's obvious.
Mr. Beuys...
At last year's an fair in Cologne,
you exhibited a work
that consisted of a Volkswagen bus...
out of which are coming a large number...
Maybe 20, correct me if I'm wrong...
-40!
-...40 small sleds,
all of them exactly the same,
and I found it amusing.
- That isn't what I wanted to say...
- But that's good!
- No!
- But that's great! Why not?
But...
Do you want to stamp out laughter and fun,
to have a revolution without laughter?
I have a specific question...
I want to get my moneys worth
out of this revolution!
I believe you.
Is that...?
And I want others
to get their money's worth!
I believe you. But I want to ask you...
Why didn't you use baby buggies?
Why not?
Because I chose the subject.
You should do something with baby buggies!
And see if you can make something
that interests people!
Max Bill...
I agree with Mr. Beuys
that were here to think.
But it's not necessary
to think until daybreak.
So...
If we take what Picasso said,
"The purpose of an
is not to decorate our apartments,
it's a weapon against the enemy."
The question is: Who is the enemy?
Professor Gehlen, you said the boundaries
of an had expanded enormously
and that you no longer
feel provoked by art.
Do you feel challenged by his works,
or do you see his art, or anti-art,
as a stimulating element? Or...
What's my work got to do with anything?
It's irrelevant.
We're talking about a theory.
We're talking about something
far beyond my work.
Let's throw my work out of the window!
- And your work as well! Maybe...
- What is it you want?
I want to expand peoples consciousness,
especially regarding
the current political situation.
- Okay...
- I don't believe we live in a democracy.
I don't believe we're taught
to be free human beings
due to our party-political bureaucracy.
- I'm willing to provoke right now!
- Me, too!
First of all,
I want to return to the original topic.
If you want to expand
or change peoples consciousness,
you must know in which direction.
That's why I'm prepared
to talk until daybreak.
- No, tell us now!
- Aha, in one sentence.
Now!
People don't understand you?
I always say that people
understand me very well.
- But they're afraid of it?
- No.
But... But then we need to...
It's not a bad thing
if people get aggressive.
Let them be aggressive.
At least that gets you talking to them.
You have to provoke it.
Provocation always causes something
to come alive.
Maybe they smash their china at home.
Or maybe they call me up on the phone.
It always happens
after I've been on TV, "Idiot!"
- They call you at home?
- Sure, whenever I've been on TV.
"Asshole!"
Yes... Just a second...
For many people, an means
the freedom of randomness,
"Ah, art. I can do whatever I want."
But what's the point of art
if nothing comes of it?
So whenever people
ask me if I'm an artist,
I say, "Oh, cut the crap."
I'm not here to decorate
these foul, moldering, stinking systems.
I'm not an artist at all.
Except if we say
that everyone is an artist.
I buy into that, but only then.
I never said everyone is a poet,
a painter, a sculptor.
I mean social an
when I say everyone is an artist.
I find what you're saying to be
terribly abstract and intellectual...
No.
I'm talking about
the emergence of a new an
where everyone not only can participate
but must participate.
He was a totally reasonable person,
not at all strange or freakish.
To me he was always totally reasonable.
The opposite of what everyone else said.
"Crazy," "strange," "peculiar."
He was the first sane person I'd ever met.
He was totally sane.
And right after our first one-on-one
conversation at documenta, I knew,
"You can trust him completely."
I thought that was great.
It had nothing to do with his aura.
I just thought he was someone who was
surrounded and courted by people and...
And then he had this incredible,
instinctive self-assurance
and this penetrating gaze.
And...
And a really sharp mind.
You need both, otherwise there's no point.
You're just a dreamer.
But he wasn't.
He was and he wasn't at the same time.
I don't know how anyone can stand that.
He was totally consistent
in his words and actions.
FOR THE DOCUMENTA
7,000 OAKS
You're serious?
If I say I'm going to plant 7,000 oaks,
then I'm going to plant 7,000 oaks.
I think the project
will take at least three years.
Thank you, Mr. Beuys.
How would you help someone
who's dumbfounded by your work
to understand it better?
I would show him the two utensils,
a spoon and a fork
and invite him to eat the object.
During the 100 days of the documenta,
you're spending 10 hours a day
here in your office.
You speak with everyone,
you answer every question...
At the heart of the documenta,
several hectoliters of bee honey
pulsate through
an extensive system of veins.
Title." "The Honey Pump in the Workplace."
The 7,000 trees in Kassel
each have a rock,
so it's a tree monument.
Every tree has a kind of opposite pole.
The tree keeps growing taller,
the rock stays as it is.
I wanted to juxtapose these two things.
So that over the course of time...
the proportions change constantly.
AN IDEA IS TAKING ROO SET YOUR ROCK ROLLING
JOSEPH BEUYS: 7,000 OAKS
I'd like to talk a little more about
another one of your influences,
your biography, your life.
If I understand correctly,
it's more than just
a personal affair for you.
What does your personal story
have to do with your art?
Is your an as autobiographical
as is sometimes claimed?
You're originally from Kleve.
You're the son of a civil servant
who went on to own
a fertilizer business, I believe.
So you weren't really predestined
to be an artist,
especially not with your
family background.
That's right, I wasn't.
My parents would've preferred me
to work in the margarine factory in Kleve.
Why did they want you
to work in the margarine factory?
Because it was the easiest way
to get a good job,
because it was on a par
with being a civil servant.
My parents wanted me to go there
because they thought,
"Whatever will become of him?"
But he did say he felt like a stranger
in his parents' house.
There was something missing there.
He felt no warmth there,
not even toward his mother.
Not really...
Theirs was a purely
pragmatic relationship...
That's how I imagine it, knowing him.
But what he felt deep down,
that was something else.
He said that his parents
rather neglected him,
that they left him to his own devices.
But instead of being sad about it,
he was proud of it.
It says a lot about him.
That's normally seen as a flaw,
but for him it was a source of strength,
being left alone, being free,
going off into the fields.
Hasn't your appearance
also become something of a cliche?
- Your famous hat, for example?
- Yes.
Does the hat
have a protective function,
or is it simply a trademark?
It also has a protective function.
So you protect your head with it.
Yes, I protect my head.
You were seriously wounded
several times during the war.
- And you once...
- Correct.
-...crashed with your plane, in '43.
- Yes.
And you said,
"It's been drafty up there ever since.
- Actually, I've got a screw loose."
- Correct.
I also said that I was shot into shape.
Do you remember the crash,
or did it happen so quickly that...?
I remember the plane going down.
I said, "Let's get out, let's jump."
- So there were other people in the plane?
- Yes, one other man.
- And he died?
- There was nothing left of him.
Apart from a few pieces of bone,
everything was...
Yes, well...
I remember hearing
the voices of the Tatars.
I remember them finding me
and standing around me.
But then I lost consciousness.
All the things I remember happened
when I was only partly conscious,
because I didn't regain consciousness
for about 12 days.
When I came to,
I was in a German hospital in the Crimea.
ACADEMY O F ARTS
Beuys was a very slim,
very skinny young man...
with a face that you never forgot.
It was somewhat deform ed
as a result of one of the crashes.
He'd suffered a broken nose
as well as injuries to his skull.
And...
But he was a man with tremendous charisma,
who radiated a tremendous warmth.
KLEVE, FEBRUARY 28,1957
"After not having visited Beuys
for a long time, I called on him today.
He was going through another phase
of neither washing
nor putting on any clothes.
He's abandoning himself more and more,
as an artist too.
How often he weeps,
says he's going to leave,
go somewhere, forever."
It probably had something to do
with the fact that he was undernourished.
And also with his total lack of success.
In any event,
that was the...
That was the time
when he sank into the quagmire
of his own inner misery.
"The chief resident spoke
about the examination in Essen.
As I understood it,
he'd diagnosed Beuys as being incurable."
He stayed there all summer.
He stayed in my room,
and when he was...
When he was depressed,
he hardly responded.
And during the worst periods,
he hardly ever left his room,
not even for a meal.
And on his better days...
he'd spend the whole day outside with us
from morning till evening,
in the meadows or fields.
And then we told him he should
do something again, at all costs.
He said, "I'm finished with art.
I don't want anything more to do with it."
I said, "You can't carry on like this."
And then my mother went up to his room
and knocked on the door, "Mr. Beuys?"
But Mr. Beuys didn't want
to come out, and she said,
"I want to talk to you, open the door,"
which he did.
And then she appealed to his conscience.
And she told him that his gift
was also an obligation, a duty
toward the spirit
that had given him that gift.
After you graduated from art school,
you withdrew to the countryside
for ten years.
Yes, I didn't feel the need to be pan
of the contemporary an scene.
When did you decide
to start doing performance an?
I think it developed quite organically
from my aim to expand
the boundaries of art.
Beuys had to create a basis for himself
in order to overcome this crisis.
He needed a pedestal to stand on,
rather like the Archimedean point,
"Give me a place to stand
and I'll move the Earth."
But it was also a spiritual basis...
his theory of "social sculpture."
How he did that, it's something I...
"How is a figure, a form created?"
"Where does the form come from?
What is form?"
Yes, that's interesting.
Certainly, when I began...
And I'm referring to my drawings again...
I was actually... How can I put it?
I was feeling my way around.
I was groping about.
Almost as if I was in the dark,
you might say.
I had to touch something...
and often had to lay it down...
and examine it myself and see
if what I'd created
might be of interest to anyone at all.
But, above all,
whether what I'd created interested me.
My choice of materials doesn't initially
come from a painterly impulse,
it comes from the wish
to create sculpture.
These materials appeared at a time
when I was trying to break down the term
"sculpture" into its components.
And felt appeared as an insulating element
within the three configurations
of sculpture:
undetermined, determined and movement.
The simplest thing in the world,
when describing
the process of a production,
is called...
"undetermined starting point..."
"momentum" and "form."
FAT CORNER
Fat was the ideal material
for showing states of chaotic...
condition...
for showing movement
and the principle of form.
The principle of form appears
as a "fat corner" in a room.
In the fat, you have an ideal opportunity
to show the components of the sculpture
through the performance.
But I'm referring to sculpture
not as a static element,
but as a universal one.
I'd like to come back
to this idea of rationale.
If you make your "fat corners,"
for example...
Yes.
...then you think about
making them beforehand.
They don't appear on their own,
without a rationale, without thought.
The fat doesn't get
into the corner on its own.
Correct!
All right, that's what you think.
But I cant be so impatient.
Maybe you can allow yourself to be.
All I can say
is that it's no longer possible
to talk about sculpture
in a conventional sense,
as if one knew what it was.
"A sculpture is something
that stands there, like a coat rack.
It's spatial, you can put a hat on it..."
I've tried to apply the term to people,
so that the things I find in sculpture
I can find in people too.
That's right. You might laugh
and think how irrelevant that is.
But I've done it!
And now we come to another concept
that plays an important part.
I suggest that the first product
of human creativity is thought,
and that because of this,
thought itself is sculpture.
Thoughts affect the world.
THOUGHT = SCULPTURE
"FREEDOM"
Dsseldorf Academy of Arts.
A demon is destroying calm and order."
Joseph Beuys, professor and sculptor.
He uses the academy
to carry his ideas out into society.
Fundamentally,
every human being can be creative
if an opportunity is created
for him or her to be able to be creative.
That's the question
of equal opportunity in education.
Here, a professor
is putting his concept of art into action,
a concept that breaks out
of the aesthetic realm
and applies h: all areas of life.
You have to ask yourself how we've arrived
at this sorry state of affairs,
what's causing these ills?
We're forced to use
everything at our disposal.
In that sense, it looks like a...
Beuys' class had a high profile
and was very much tailored
to Beuys himself.
And I was one of the worst,
I was a true disciple of Beuys,
and that's the worst thing
that can happen at any art academy,
when, instead of wanting
to do their own thing,
the students fall into line
with a particular idea.
If that happens at an academy of art...
An is very sensitive in that respect,
because it stinks of ideology
from the get-go.
There certainly are people
who have a great affinity with my ideas,
but they aren't always disciples:
we work together.
Beuys was with us in the class
from morning till evening.
There had never been anything like it
at the academy.
When he was talking to someone,
critiquing their work, for example,
he always found a new point
that had to be worked on.
And you'd be thinking,
"Let's go get a coffee, for God's sake,"
but he'd go on and on.
Do you distinguish between Beuys
the artist and Beuys the teacher?
No, not at all.
And that's exactly
what's most important to me.
I've said again and again that...
that I see this kind of work
as a product of art.
Friday, April 28, 10:30 am.
Joseph Beuys outlines his latest project.
What I'd like to do is create a kind
of cultural center here in Dusseldorf
that can be interesting
for the whole world,
as a meeting point.
Then I'd like to create a second tier:
the permanent presentation of artists
from all around the world...
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no, no, no, no.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no, no, no, no.
Chinese artists,
Russian artists, Hungarian artists,
American artists, Finnish artists,
and so on.
So that we can overcome
the problem of the art market
by utilizing the time factor.
But there were some professors there
who took offense at Beuys.
Because, with his concept of freedom,
he'd hit a raw nerve
by, without necessarily wanting to,
making his colleagues look bad.
He'd hit a raw nerve by basically saying:
"You're artists, this is about art.
An is total freedom
and self-determination.
And what are you? Civil servants."
I want to draw people's attention
to misguided policies,
and I'm no longer interested
in causing trouble at the academy.
I want to inform people
about the true culprits in our system.
I want to inform and educate people.
That's the idea
people often laugh at me for:
"Can sculpture change the world?"
BOXING MATCH: JOSEPH BEUYS
&ABRAHAM DAVID CHRISTIAN
DIRECT DEMOCRACY VIA REFERENDA
The documenta was over,
and the new semester began the next day.
All the bigwigs from the government
of North Rhine-Westphalia were invited.
And Joseph Beuys stood up in front of them
and made a speech to them in grunts.
I don't think
it would've occurred to anyone to laugh.
It was too dangerous.
IS THIS THE CHOP
FOR ART PROFESSOR BEUYS?
EIGHT COLLEAGUES
MUTINYAGAINST HIM
(CONSTANT) TROUBLE WITH BEUYS
Students at the Academy of Arts
in Dsseldorf
demonstrate for one of their teachers,
Professor Joseph Beuys.
NO REPLACEMENT FOR BEUYS
How do you judge the general situation
at the academy?
It's pretty chaotic.
But we didn't cause this chaos,
it was those in authority
in the cultural bureaucracy.
Let's talk about what happened.
Along with 54 applicants
who'd been turned down by the academy,
you occupied its offices.
What did you hope to achieve by this?
I wanted to very calmly see to it
that these students,
who already attend my class,
should be enrolled.
On October 5, we were informed
that it was Professor Beuys' intention,
as of October 10,
to remain in the academys offices
for a prolonged duration.
The letter to Mr. Beuys, which was written
by proxy for the undersecretary,
had been agreed on by me, and in it,
it was pointed out to Professor Beuys
that, in spite of our sympathy
for his personal style,
we could not accept unlawful acts
and that his status as a state employee
was in question.
NO REPLACEMENT FOR BEUYS
The Minister for Science has dismissed you
without prior notice for "trespassing."
Do you think the Minister
will revoke your dismissal?
I don't think so. Maybe.
I'll leave it open.
He could at least have talked to me,
in my opinion.
Why let something happen
that resulted in huge effort and expense?
The police operation, for example?
Wouldn't it have been more economical
to talk to me?
What are your plans now?
You've been officially dismissed.
What do you think about that?
How do you feel now?
Like Don Quixote, whom?
No, not at all.
Or like...
Professor,
what are the main points of your dispute?
The cultural scene has been destroyed
to a large extent, again by Mr. Rau.
Due to his interference
in the Academy of Arts,
its development,
the creation of new ideas,
as well as the appearance
of foreign artists here in Dusseldorf
have been ruined. That's a fact.
Is it really so dramatic?
The accumulation of these events
results in a kind of experience
that makes you want to leave this city
as quickly as possible.
The question is...
Shall we take a short break?
What conclusions have you drawn from it
for your future?
I'm treating myself
solely through the character of my work.
I've proposed the theory...
I made a multiple:
"I Nourish Myself by Wasting Energy."
Yes.
Yes, that's my method.
BEUYS: FOR ME THERE'S NO SUCH THING
AS WEEKENDS
Joseph, do you think you've chosen
the right time to come to America
and talk about your ideas
on an and politics,
after turning down almost every invitation
from America in the last 10 years?
Would you like to smoke a cigar first?
Beuys could embolden you
the old-fashioned way: by example.
He had a vision. He wanted something.
We're really into step-by-step plans,
as you know.
So let's begin casually with step one.
Casually...
He was someone who saw
in every person a potential partner
for his ideas, for his ideas.
And he didn't care where someone
came from or what they'd done.
He said of himself that his attitude was,
"Give people time
and they'll come around."
Because I've now reached the point
where it's clear to me that I won't
put on the kind of exhibition in America
that's been the norm in the past...
and that there's
a lot of interest here now
in these complex ideas
with a political dimension.
I learned a huge amount from him,
including how to cope
with being insulted and reviled.
How to keep trying and trying again,
starting afresh.
And, of course,
he was attacked by many people
who didn't like the idea of an artist
interfering with social issues.
Beuys speaking...
Joseph Beuys, both venerated and reviled,
is running for parliament.
In 1971, he founded an organization
for direct democracy through referenda,
and he's totally serious
about his current election campaign.
Serious about, among other things,
bringing laughter into parliament.
- Would you like to become Chancellor?
- Pardon?
- Pardon?
- Would you like to become Chancellor?
Sure.
Sure, why not?
Yeah, that's the way it is...
Tonight we're going to discuss the chances
and limits of politicization through art.
If I could determine what is,
then I could quickly agree with you.
I don't want to keep determining what is,
I want to get an idea
of what might be desirable for people.
You talk about innovation as if no one
had ever thought of it before...
You're just insinuating that...
Then let me speak for five minutes.
You won't commit yourself.
That's your unbridled liberalism.
That's no use to political activists.
- My desire for freedom.
- Fine, I'd call it something else.
But let me talk
about Beuys' political praxis.
I believe the term "politics,"
as it's used currently,
is what's preventing genuine change.
Joseph Beuys, you're Germany's
most controversial artist.
But you're also a member
of the Green Party.
Are you serious about that?
Of course. You have to achieve things
via a future-oriented movement.
The conference is open!
I would like to point out
that the process of forming opinions
is incredibly laborious
for a young party such as ourselves.
Beuys really didn't need that.
He got him self involved
with the formation of a party
and with everything
that went along with that.
You wouldn't believe what torture that is.
Especially in the case of a party
that isn't a party,
where everything's totally haywire.
I repeat: no one is being rejected!
You had nature lovers
colliding with hard-core Marxists.
Then there were die-hard Nazis
who had somehow become acceptable
because of their holistic philosophy.
And then there were the left-wingers
from Hamburg.
Beuys dove right in.
We'll have to keep working with it,
of course.
It won't stop you from continuing
to work with the Greens.
No, it won't stop me.
He really believed in that movement,
in the founding of the Green Party,
and Beuys said:
'We've witnessed a historic day today."
He was so certain
that it was the anti-party party.
A Green Party program?
A Program?
- Green Party program?
- Thanks.
How about you?
Maybe he'll give us his autograph.
- I think more of you as an artist.
- Hold on! What do I get in return?
Will you vote for the Green Party
if I draw a picture for you?
Casual elegance reigned at Dsseldorf
gallery Denise Rene last night.
And men he came: Andy Warhol, pale, shy,
constantly searching for Joseph Beuys,
who was nowhere to be seen.
Joseph Beuys, who we're still waiting for,
has become such a politician
that he knows how
to make a dramatic entrance.
I remember driving back
from Brussels with him one time.
And I said...
Because we were all very tired,
we'd started out from Brussels
at five or six in the morning,
and during the journey back he said,
"I've got to get back,
I can't stop for long."
So we took a lovely photo of him
at a roadhouse,
on which he wrote,
"The Man at the Main Lever."
And I think that's how he saw himself:
the man at the main lever.
Beuys speaking.
- Good morning, Mr. Beuys in Dsseldorf.
Morning.
Beuys speaking.
Who called?
And during the journey he said,
"I've got so many appointments,
from now on I'll start
at four in the morning..."
- Four in the morning.
-"...or at five, or at six."
I thought,
"How long can anyone keep that up?"
Beuys speaking.
I don't have time at the moment.
It's wearing me out, but that's necessary.
Why is it necessary?
- Sorry?
- Why is it necessary?
- Why've you got to wear yourself out?
- Everyone has to wear themselves out.
It'd be bad if they were good
and died without wearing themselves out.
- Okay.
- Everything has to be used up anyway.
It doesn't matter
what profession you're in,
you have to wear yourself out.
You have to burn yourself down to ashes,
otherwise there's no point.
- If you're still good, that's bad.
- Then it's frustrating, isn't it?
"Everything's still so good!"
And then you kick the bucket, that's bad.
From this perspective, not from another.
- In which area are you laziest?
- Sorry?
In which area are you laziest?
- Laziest?
- Yes, laziest.
- Maybe I don't understand your question.
- I just said...
A time always comes when you're tempted
to retire from active life.
When you say, "Maybe it would be better
if I went to Australia."
That's not a joke.
Is it?
You mustn't retire.
I'm not going to. I'm not going to retire.
I'm not going to retire.
But if at some time I...
It really would be a historical disaster.
That's why I'm not going to retire.
I'm not going to retire at all.
But you're bound to say at some point,
"Kiss my ass!
I'm going to wander dreamily
around the world."
What would the alternative be?
The alternative would be to carry on
in a form where, to a certain extent,
you're well-known.
To stubbornly carry on
doing the same thing.
I can see Beuys's loneliness
and his incredible sensitivity,
his porousness, his...
That...
That he was always inside his wound,
inside his hurt.
And that makes you admire
this incredible strength even more,
which he used as an antidote,
his courage as well.
Mr. Beuys,
I don't want to mention your hat...
Mr. Beuys, you've now...
Mr. Beuys, what is art?
Beuys!
ONLY 2,272 DAYS
UNTIL THE END OF CAPITALISM
- Yes.
- Yes.
How to topple capitalism,
that's how I'd have to put it.
Yes.
LAST WARNING TO DEUTSCHE BAN K:
NEXT TIME WELL NAME NAMES AND IDEAS
- Mr. Beuys, are you a radical?
- Yes, I am.
A famous radical. Is that possible?
It would be good if radicals became famous
and people listened to them.
In '83, the Greens were going full steam
and for the first time
they had a real chance
of getting into parliament.
And no one understood why he kept
going on about the term "capital."
It was much too lofty,
even for the Greens.
And now I want to get
to the heart of the matter.
Because whenever a democratic process
dares touch the actual nerve
of societal change,
the power relations around money
undermine every attempt at democracy.
The power of money mus! be broken.
Today money is a tradable commodity
you can speculate with IT.
So in me economic sphere,
money is an entity
that shouldn't be a commodity
bu! because R is a commodity,
this character must be brought into line
with the whole of democracy.
We went to the conference
and didn't think anything of it.
We thought...
Because Beuys had been
the top candidate three years before.
And you sensed immediately
that the atmosphere was really peculiar.
Who's still interested in you?
- Who do you still provoke...?
- Quiet, please!
Could you be quieter, please?
And some of the delegates
really went after him.
"Beuys, go off and play with your fat!"
Or...
"Beuys, you're costing us votes."
Please be quiet in the hall,
or we can't hear anything up here.
We quickly figured out that the candidates
had already been selected.
It was clear he wasn't one of them.
He was being dropped by his own people.
There's no point in me standing up
in front of someone,
or in front of lots of people...
without there being a question.
What's the point
of just foisting an issue on people?
Because they might not
even be interested in it.
I have to speak in a way that I know
that there's something
inside of the people,
that there's a question
that I can try to answer, that I can try
to solve together with them.
It's actually a joint task.