Director: Andres Veiel
Documentary, Germany, 2017, 107 min.
Few 20th century German creative artists were as controversial as performance artist, sculptor, graphic artist, art theorist and occasional Professor Joseph Beuys (1921–1986). His work addressed a new, expanded concept of art, including the political shaping of society.
Andres Veiel’s documentary embarks upon an extensive hunt for clues, bringing to light a host of unknown archive material and allowing contemporary witnesses like Klaus Staeck the opportunity to talk. What emerges is a collage of visual and audio documents providing viewers with access to Beuys’ complex work.
Besides research, filmmaker Andres Veiel’s great achievement lies in his dramaturgy. Veiel and his colleagues developed a structure in the cutting room that, even with photographic contact sheets, uncouples itself from any chronology and refuses to follow the lines of a simple biography, but rather intertwines work and life like a mosaic in which no stone is more important than another.
About the series “Art Films at Warehouse421”:
Film and visual arts are joined at the hip, and filmmakers have always been interested in the life and work of artists. Throughout the fall and winter the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Warehouse 421 will be showing films about art and artists – real ones, fictional artists and art forgers. Be inspired.
Watch the trailer of “Beuys”
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