Joseph Beuys

In the 20^th century only very few artists have shaped and molded the concept of art and our conception of modern and contemporary art as distinctively as Joseph Beuys.

It is astonishing, however, that the “expanded concept of art” coined by Beuys is still so often misunderstood. Beuys formulated his thoughts very clearly as early as 1976, which is why he should be quoted on his birthday himself:

"Art is the image of man himself. That is, when man is confronted with art, he is basically confronted with himself. He then opens his eyes. So the creative person is addressed, his creativity, his freedom, its autonomy. And that is only possible from the concept of art, but then one has to expand it. One cannot and must not keep it so traditional and say: That is what the artists do and that is what the engineers do. But you can break that up. And there is only a way out through an expanded concept of art, which is anthropological, which takes really seriously that every person is an artist, that there is a creative core in every person. "

Joseph Beuys would have turned 100 on May 12, 2021.