Action artist, activist, sculptor, draftsman, and professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy: Few German cultural figures of the 20th century were as influential and controversial as Joseph Beuys (1921-1986). His ideas, works, and political commitment had a significant impact on the art landscape of the post-war period. His approach of social sculpture influenced the art world and society. His statement “Everyone is an artist” is more relevant than ever.
To mark the centenary of Joseph Beuys the Goethe-Institut Irland and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin are presenting a programme of films about the artist to accompany the Hugh Lane’s exhibition “
Joseph Beuys - From the Secret Block to Rosc” (17 July 2021 - 9 January 2022).
Wednesday, 29 September 2021, 6pm – Sunday, 3 October 2021, 10pm (GMT)
Online
©Zero One Film, Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Stiftung Museum Schloss Moyland, Ute Klophaus
Beuys
Dir.: Andres Veiel, 107 min., b/w and colour, Germany 2017
Beuys, the man with a hat, some felt, and the ‘Fettecke’. Over 30 years after his death he still feels like a visionary who was ahead of his time. He was the first German artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, whilst at home in Germany his work was often still derided as the ‘most expensive trash of all time’. Once asked if he was indifferent to such comments he retorted: ‘Yes. I want to expand people’s perceptions’.
Andres Veiel’s documentary is an extensive search for clues to the artist’s thinking. He unearths a wealth of barely known archive material and lets contemporary witnesses such as Klaus Staeck have their say. The result is a collage of visual and audio documents that gives viewers access to the complex work of Beuys.
Premiered at the Berlinale 2017 „Beuys“ received the German Film Award in two categories (Best Documentary, Best Editing).
No booking required, but registration on
Goethe on Demand
Available in the Republic of Ireland from 29 September - 3 October 2021
Watch Movie
Friday, 8 October 2021, 1pm
Goethe-Institut Irland, 37 Merrion Square, Dublin 2
(c) Image courtesy Galerie René Block und Helmut Wietz
Joseph Beuys: I Like Amerika and America Likes Me
A film by Helmut Wietz, Camera: Helmut Wietz, 38 min, b/w, USA/Germany 1981, no dialogue, Production/Copyright: Galerie René Block, New York, and Helmut Wietz / VG Bild-Kunst 2021
Documented in this film is the performance "I Like America and America Likes Me" at Gallery René Block, New York from 23-25 May 1974.
Joseph Beuys, upon his arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport, is immediately wrapped in a felt cloth and driven to the gallery in an ambulance. There, in a cordoned off room, a coyote awaits him. Beuys lives with the coyote for several days and nights, observable at all times through a chain-link fence. In addition to the felt blanket, his props include a walking stick, a triangle, a flashlight, gloves, and 50 copies of the "Wall Street Journal" per day. After the performance, Beuys is transported back to the airport in the same way he arrived.
Followed by a talk by film curator Alice Butler
Booking required via
Eventbrite
Please note: Masks are required indoors in the Goethe-Institut Irland. Please bring one of the following documents required for admittance: proof of vaccination or proof of immunity or proof of a negative COVID-test performed no earlier than 48 hours prior to event.
Sunday, 17 October 2021, 1pm
Hugh Lane Gallery, Gallery 18, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1
(c) Rónán Ó Raghallaigh
Rónán Ó Raghallaigh: Directions of the Cauldron
Performance by Rónán Ó Raghallaigh, Filmed and edited by Mark O'Gorman, 13 min, colour, Ireland 2021
This performance, filmed at the oak tree on the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) which was planted in 1991 in memory of Beuys, imagines how a druid’s lecture might have sounded or could exist in contemporary times. The result is a ritual speech which incorporates a deer skull in response to Beuys’ artwork “7000 Oaks.” It uses Beuys’ metaphor of Europe as a cauldron for its conceptual framework: the directions of the cauldron all represent different things in relation to the Celtic and affect the reading of “7000 Oaks.” The performative lecture exists in a druidic state of suspended logic which allows for both stability and instability of meaning.
Irish artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh’s work makes use of the surreal, the symbolic, and the ritual. It is an act of decolonisation and is its own form of Celtic revivalism in the 21st century informed by postcolonial theory. On Bealtaine 2021, Rónán Ó Raghallaigh held a family ceremony where he was re-baptised as a druid.
In 2021 he completed his MFA in "Art in the Contemporary World" at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin during which he wrote a thesis about “Postcolonial Druidry and Joseph Beuys”.
Followed by a talk between Rónán Ó Raghallaigh and Dr. Francis Halsall, National College of Art and Design
No booking required but space is limited. People wishing to attend are required to show vaccination certificates.
There will also be a live performance by Rónán Ó Raghallaigh at the Goethe-Institut in Dublin on 28 October 2021. Using sacred objects he will enter a druidic trance and attempt to channel Joseph Beuys, drawing the visions he receives immediately afterwards.
Tickets and further information
here
Wednesday, 20 October 2021, 6pm – Sunday, 24 October 2021, 10pm (GMT)
Online
(c) Image courtesy of Video Data Bank of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Joseph Beuys: An Interview
A Film by Kate Horsefield and Lyn Blumenthal, colour, 55 min, USA 1980, re-edited 2003, Production: Video Data Bank, Chicago
In this interview, Beuys recounts his own tangled experiences as a child in interwar Germany. The contradiction between an undestroyed natural environment, full of possibility, and the deeply troubled social body at the time was an intense and formative one. Beuys tracks his increasing ability to analyse the contradictions he felt, and the urgency during the WWII era for renewing and re-posing questions central to the life, labour and freedom of the people.
Beuys also discusses his engagement with materials, the limits of preparation for a performance, and other issues important to his artistic practice. He continually addresses the urgency of an expanded understanding of art with the radical potential to transform the social body. He holds out the vital possibility of ‘another kind of art’ where aesthetics is meaningless except as ‘the human being in itself’.
No booking required, but registration on
Goethe on Demand
Available in the Republic of Ireland from 20-24 October 2021
Watch Movie
Sun, 24 October 2021, 1pm
Hugh Lane Gallery, Gallery 18, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1
(c) Joseph Beuys, The Blackboards, Dublin, 1974. Collection and image © Hugh Lane Gallery. © Estate of Joseph Beuys. Bildkunst Bonn/IVARO Dublin, 2021.
A Beuys Crying in the Wilderness
Directed by Derek Bailey, 1974. 22 minutes. First broadcast, Aquarius, London Weekend Television. Courtesy of ITV Archive.
"A Beuys Crying in the Wilderness" gives viewers a rare opportunity to revisit Joseph Beuys’s stay in Northern Ireland in 1974, and to experience his talks at the Ulster Museum and the Ulster College of Art. The film captures the responses of students and people in the streets of Belfast, to Beuys and his visit. It was made by Derek Bailey, who was renowned for his cultural programmes for Ulster television, ITV and the BBC.
Followed by a talk by film curator Alice Butler
Booking required via
Eventbrite
The Beuys 100 film programme is presented by the Goethe-Institut Irland and the Hugh Lane Gallery as part of the programme accompanying the Hugh Lane’s exhibition “
Joseph Beuys - From the Secret Block to Rosc” (17 July – 9 January 2022)
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