Hidden aspects of the artist’s life
2021 - Joseph Beuys’ anniversary year - is coming to an end and we would like to invite you to the event: Happy Birthday, Joseph Beuys – Sort Of.
Curator Daphne Vitali has invited art historian and professor Gene Ray, who has researched and written episodically on Joseph Beuys, to give a talk about his own research and his contributions to the international Beuys’s debates. Gene Ray’s talk titled Happy Birthday, Joseph Beuys - Sort Of will bring to light some hidden aspects of the artists life and legacy and he will share his insights into Beuys as a controversial artist, against the grain of the 100th birthday "celebrations."Joseph Beuys continues to be both a highly influential and highly controversial artist. The 100 year celebrations tend to forget that Beuys' legacy remains contested and full of troubling silences and still unanswered questions. As a participant in these debates, Ray shares his interpretations and experiences researching Beuys in Germany.
After the talk there will be a screening of the two commissioned video works produced by Jennifer Nelson (GR/US) and Janis Rafa (GR/NL) in the framework of the project Everything Is in a State of Change curated by Daphne Vitali and organized by the Goethe Institut-Athen on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Joseph Beuys’s birth that premiered in May 2021.
Following the presentation of the videos, the two artists Janis Rafa and Jennifer Nelson will discuss their work together with Daphne Vitali and with the audience.
You can find further information about the video works and the project here.
The event is organized by the Goethe-Institut Athens in cooperation with the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA).
The dean of the Athens School of Fine Arts Prof Nikos Tranos will give a short introduction.
about the videoworks
In order to pay homage to one of the most important and influential artists of the post-war period, the curator has invited two mid-career international artists Jennifer Nelson (GR/US) and Janis Rafa (GR/NL) to produce new works, referring to and dialoguing with Joseph Beuys’s diverse body of work and artistic research. Jennifer Nelson and Janis Rafa are two artists whose artistic preoccupations are related to Beuys’s vast artistic practice, methodologies, and ideas as well as his stand on ecology. The artists’ new commissioned works engage – directly or indirectly – with environmental issues and more specifically with the relationship and interconnection between the human and the animal worlds. Both artists are drawn to the animal kingdom and focus on the biological, ethical, and philosophical connections that bind us to animals by creating artworks that are filtered by abstractions and metaphors, tackle social issues, and create an open perception of reality. The two new video works by the two artists each create a very different universe and visual narrative, yet both reflect on trauma, existence, violence, and change.
COVID-19
To take part in the event a vaccination certificate or recovery certificate is necessary. Wearing a face mask is mandatory.
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