On May 12, 1967, Beuys founded the fictitious "free democratic socialist state of EURASIA", a combination and interplay of democracy and socialism. He was against the rigid conformism and suffocating dogmatics of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism. In 1967 he did a shamanic performance in Vienna with the artist and Fluxus composer Henning Christiansen, who played a music he had especially composed on an organ. The name of the performance was "Eurasienstab 82 min fluxorum organum op. 39" (See http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/joseph-beuys-eurasienstab-fluxorum-organum-opus-39).
Beuys formed a fat corner, strapped an iron sole under one shoe, then jammed four long angle brackets, covered in felt, between the floor and ceiling so they formed a square of seven by seven feet. Beuys then unwrapped the heavy, eight feet long "Eurasienstab" and performed with it. He ran it along the felt brackets, pointed it in directions of the compass and established a connection with the fat corner. For Beuys the "Eurasienstab", with a crook at the end like a shepherd's staff, was a symbol of the emanation of power in all directions, it formed reference areas and referred to the clearing of polarities, the union of opposites, the identification of space and time, the convergence of vision and reality. In the present work, on the postcard of Munich, it floats above the panorama of the alps behind the city; on the aluminium board, stamped with browncrosses, it is drawn four times.
