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This is the end-of-the-year document I wrote to wrap up the art history course Joseph Beuys and the art of the 20th Century.

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Life is a series of experiences and with each experience we receive a bag of valuables. As we have more experiences we begin to see patterns and make connections. Some patterns are dead-ends and some patterns create energy that encourages us to keep going. These experiences teach us about ourselves, our neighbor, our country, our god, and we begin to place ourselves in a cosmic map. It’s human nature.

Some of us are conscious of this chain of events. We have the ability to manipulate aspects of life so that we can enhance our experiences, define them, or evoke them. We ask ourselves very difficult questions about our character and our history. Finally we ask ourselves, “What can we do with all of this information?”

In these instances, these people have the potential to impact a larger mass of people. Their bag of valuables becomes a fountain of enlightenment, a source of change, and a mark historical. Joseph Beuys is one of these characters. Because I considering myself a student of his, what follows is a report and comparison of important events in his life and my own.

« people can express themselves only through imprint forms using certain materials. This is, of course, also the case for language. But if this model – it need not be large; today everything is much to large – if the imprint character is there, it is easier to see where it came from and whether the constellation is already, shall we say, optimal, and this can be discussed unendingly. » 1

We begin with the character imprint. Beuys defines the “character imprint” as a personal mark in any material. However, we know that the choice of that material is just as important as the actual imprint itself.

Symbolic Material

An artist works with a visual vernacular . This visual vernacular is a group of symbols and materials that have a value that is personally historic. Artists apply this vernacular to create new situations and amalgamations.

You can not go to Lebanon and not feel contact of some sort. The imprint of this country carries signs of war, an action that brings one’s face to the earth to as well as to each other. If there was any moment to reflect on materials, it was – undeniably – going to happen here.

As I am a young artist, I am still experimenting and finding my vernacular. When I was in Beirut one material stood out clearly: honey. Aside from it’s personal historical value, I believe the properties of honey (when applied as sculpture) have the potential to change the meanings of certain icons.

The impressions of War can still be seen in Beirut. War is a form of experience that impacts us enormously. The range of these wars can be personal (as within a family) as well as public. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the psychological results of war, can be a method used to identify materials and symbols.

For Joseph Beuys, the experience of war revealed to him his two most significant materials: fat and felt. These two materials were used to save his life during World War two. Although he uses many other symbols and materials they all carry the symbol of healing.

Honey

The material of Honey has had a very important place in my personal collection of materials. In Beirut I saw the importance of working again with this material as well as what amalgamations I could make. For this series of sculptures honey will transform certain icons of the Mediterranean and Middle East. The focus is to talk about not just the conflict of this region, but its healing.

Mostly regarded as a natural sweetener and delicacy, honey has many uses as well as a long history. Although its history is interesting, and its taste something worth being studied, it is the healing properties that make this an interesting material. The three properties of honey are hygroscopic, antibiotic, and antioxidant.

Honey has a hygroscopic nature, which means when exposed to air, it naturally absorbs moisture in from the air. In treating open wounds, honey is useful as it could help prevent scarring by keeping the skin moist, encourage the growth of new tissues, and allow easy removal of any dressing by preventing dressing from becoming stuck to the skin.

Recently the development of resistance to antibiotics has led to a resurgence of interest into the healing properties of honey (as an antibiotic). The effective antimicrobial agent in honey prohibits the growth of certain bacteria. It contains an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide which is believed to be the main reason for the antimicrobial activity of honey.

Honey contains natural antioxidant properties that can destroy biologically destructive chemical agents which have been linked to many diseases such as cancer. Not only could honey’s antioxidants help to eliminate free radicals in the body, they are also part of the nutrient supply for growth of new tissue. These precious honey properties help protect the skin under the sun and help the skin to rejuvenate. 2

There are an amazing number statues of the Virgin Mary (as well as other saints Christian) displayed throughout Lebanon. Changes begin to occur in the meaning of the Mary if she is made in wax and filled with honey. Her presence as a icon of the Christian world takes on a more peaceful plea rather than an isolating and conflicting stance.

The deep conflicts of Lebanon and this region are primarily religious. Religion and politics mesh and this clash of religious politics has lead to the destruction and hindrance of a beautiful country. But it is not just the religious icons that will be transformed this material.

The geography of the region is of great importance as well. My understanding is that the Mediterranean is the birthplace of the society. Due to its geography it has made contact with, over time, most of the worlds cultures. It is a place where east literally meets west. The methods of this connection are through trade. Trade is a symbol, similar to honey, of peace. Politics have to make room for peace, if you are in a relationship of trade. If not, this leads to the conflicts like the American war in Iraq.

Nevertheless, trade in this region is a symbol of human interaction, cultural understanding, as well as conflict. Sculpting this region in Honeycomb to create a floor sculpture large enough a person to move through, will bring a symbol of healing as well.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Conflict, in its many forms, is the cause of many great things. The experience of war is an experience that changes the moral fibers of not only one person, but an entire people and their relationship with other groups of people. The effects of this are called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and certain transformations occur for a person who is diagnosed with this. Yet it is the process of freeing oneself from this Disorder where something unique happens.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that some people get after seeing or living through a dangerous event. When in danger, it’s natural to feel afraid. This fear triggers many split-second changes in the body to prepare to defend against the danger or to avoid it. This ‘fight-or-flight’ response is a healthy reaction meant to protect a person from harm. But in PTSD, this reaction is changed or damaged. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they’re no longer in danger. 3

The effects the experience of war or criminal acts tend to produce the same responses. The body, which fought very hard to survive, has survived and tries to process all of what has happened. It’s not an easy process. There are stops and starts and constant erratic jumps in time. However, the reward of this process is a deeper global understanding of human nature, society, and history. Some find that this experience gives them a desire to share that understanding with others in hopes of creating something positive or challenging.

Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. They can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings. Words, objects, or situations that are reminders of the event can also trigger re-experiencing. 3

Examining the symptom of Triggers of this disorder can give us an insight to Beuys and other artists like him and their choices of materials. As talked about previously, triggers can be objects, situations, smells, or any other sensory experience that bring us back in time to relive a horror.

However, not all triggers have a negative impact, in fact part of the healing process from this disorder is taking positive souvenirs of the triggers, things that comforted us during the trauma – or creating them. These healing elements allow us to transform the anger and hopelessness into a more palatable conversation. So these personal symbols become the materials of our work. They become the honey and the fat and the felt.

Because of the traumatic event the understanding of how the world works, something that most of us take for granted, has been shattered. As a part of the process of recovery one recreates their own sense of stability and understanding of how things function. The works of Beuys exemplifies this characteristic. Not only do we find materials that have a symbolic power, but we also find that Beuys has created systems of understanding for himself and applied them to the art world.

They are also charged with the responsibility of seeing themselves – having been changed through this experience – and how their understanding of the world is not longer the common logic. In this situation one can accept this difference and move on or they can do something different. They can challenge these systems and ask others to listen to understand this new point of view.

Beuys did this activity so much in his works through teachings, lectures, and open dialogues that it became a form of art – performance. The remains of these actions, chalkboards especially, became his installations.

What remains at the core of his works, though, is his relationship with these materials, what they symbolized for him and what experience they were born from. The process of recovering from this disorder one uses the tools of justification and reflection to explain the decision behind the actions.

Beuys often said that his fascination with fat and felt dated back to the Second World War, when he worked as a radio operator in Stuka bombers. Shot down over the Crimea, so the story went, his life had been saved by nomadic Tartars who’d rubbed his burned and frozen body with fat and wrapped it in felt.

Fat and felt came to symbolize nurture in Beuys’s personal mythology as he revealed in an interview included in a BBC film:

“I didn’t take these stuffs only as a kind of immediately dramatic stuff because I was in a dramatic situation in the war, no, not at all. I wasn’t interested to take such things. But later on, when I built up a kind of theory and a system of sculpture and art and also a system of wider understanding – anthropological understanding of sculpture being related to the social body and to everybody’s life and ability – then such materials seemed to be right and effective tools to overcome, one could say, the wound of us.” 4

His self-awareness is crucial to this process. This is the very thing that takes his art from the simple existence of catharsis and elevates it to a process of art by which we might talk to each other about certain subjects. The self-expression is important, and the history stated, but these things alone do not make the work. It is the works themselves that exist for others to critique and learn from. The process Beuys goes through to make art is not on trial, although not ignored. It is something that is fundamental, that is all. It is through this process of putting himself up for example that we can being to talk about the other issues going on here.

Felt and Fat

There was one very significant experience that occurred in Beuys’ life from which he derived the two characteristic materials of his work, Fat and Felt. For the purposes of simplicity we will assume that the story that follows is a true account, although there has been evidence acquired by the artist Jörg Herold to the contrary.

“Had it not been for the Tartars I would not be alive today. They were the nomads of the Crimea, in what was then no man’s land between the Russian and German fronts, and favoured neither side. I had already struck up a good relationship with them, and often wandered off to sit with them. ‘Du nix njemcky’ they would say, ‘du Tartar,’ and try to persuade me to join their clan. Their nomadic ways attracted me of course, although by that time their movements had been restricted. Yet it was they who discovered me in the snow after the crash, when the German search parties had given up. I was still unconscious then and only came round completely after twelve days or so, and by then I was back in a German field hospital. So the memories I have of that time are images that penetrated my consciousness. The last thing I remember was that it was too late to jump, too late for the parachutes to open. That must have been a couple of seconds before hitting the ground. Luckily I was not strapped in – I always preferred free movement to safety belts… My friend was strapped in and he was atomized on impact – there was almost nothing to be found of him afterwards. But I must have shot through the windscreen as it flew back at the same speed as the plane hit the ground and that saved me, though I had bad skull and jaw injuries. Then the tail flipped over and I was completely buried in the snow. That’s how the Tartars found me days later. I remember voices saying ‘Voda’ (Water), then the felt of their tents, and the dense pungent smell of cheese, fat and milk. They covered my body in fat to help it regenerate warmth, and wrapped it in felt as an insulator to keep warmth in.” 5

Location

These experiences that shape our lives come in many forms: an event, a material, or people. The experience of Place holds these forms and more. Through experiencing other cultures, geographies and histories one can find themselves inspired through a sense of identification. There is a sort of cosmic reinforcement in these situations. Symbols, materials, and mythologies mold our motives.

Beirut

Originally named Bêrūt, “The Wells” by the Phoenicians, Beirut’s history goes back more than 5000 years. Excavations in the downtown area have unearthed layers of Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Ottoman remains. The first historical reference to Beirut dates from the 14th century BC, when it is mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of the “Amarna letters.” Ammunira of Biruta sent 3 letters to the pharaoh of Egypt. Biruta is also referenced in the letters from Rib-Hadda of Byblos. The most ancient settlement was on an island in the river that progressively silted up. The city was known in antiquity as Berytus; this name was taken in 1934 for the archaeological journal published by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Beirut.

Beirut is home to (an ancient) and one of the largest seaports of the eastern Mediterranean Sea (dating back to the Phoenicians) (with) a thriving new infrastructure which continues to rise. The culture of Beirut has evolved under the influence of contact with many civilizations and peoples, including Greeks, Romans and Arab.

There are wide-ranging estimates of Beirut’s population, from 938,940 people to 2,012,000. The lack of an exact figure is due to the fact that no population census has been taken in Lebanon since 1932. 6

It was told to me that the cause of this is that if one religion was proven the majority, then the political party that represents that religion would feel entitled to rise and then the opposing religion would begin another war.

Beirut is one of the most religiously diverse cities of the Middle East, with Christians, and Muslims both having a significant presence. There are nine major religious communities in Beirut (Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim, Druze, Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, and Protestant). 6

One can not drive anywhere without seeing numerous amounts of all types of religious sculptures. These sculptures pepper the landscape and there are vendors selling sculptures for all purposes – small enough to fit on your keychain and large enough to placed in the mountain and seen from the valley.

It suffered greatly over the past few decades but is experiencing an architectural and cultural resurgence due to massive reconstruction and restoration programs. A cosmopolitan and intellectual city, you are likely to hear as much French and English as Arabic here, especially around the best bars, clubs and restaurants. It is here that Beirut’s reputation as the Paris of the Middle East is exemplified. 7

The Lebanese have experienced epochs of war. Beirut still shows the marks of this. There are tall buildings or groups of buildings that are in some form of dilapidation, their facades pock-marked with gun shot and bomb wounds. Their insides gutted and show evidence of the power of nature as wild plants begin to catch themselves in the cracks and growing to perhaps convince these stubborn buildings to finally lay down and sleep.

Other parts of the city are caught in a time warp. Hamra’s architecture is straight from the 60’s and 70’s, while a short drive to Achrafieh is a drive back in time to the 30’s and 40’s. Dotted through all of this are Ruins. These large chunks of the ancient civilizations are so prevalent that the comprise large heaps of rubble on construction sites. Large portions of the city are blocked and architecturally framed to display the best examples of these many ancient civilizations. Any Lebanese will tell you that you can’t dig anywhere without finding some kind of Ruins.

In great contrast and simultaneously parts of the city have been entirely reconstructed, as is the case with City Center which now resembles a sort of theme-park version of typical Lebanese architecture. Many buildings and lots, still under construction, are wrapped in vinyl depicting a New Beirut. It is this energy that one feels the most in The Lebanese people. Their spirit. Even after having experienced such trauma they are not shaken. They stand as a test of time, and brush off the rubble and don’t blink twice. Why would they? The city is older than the Pyramids, older than the Bible. They have seen this all before.

There is a wisdom of this place that can only be described as feet firmly planted in those ruins and a long elastic body which reaches up through all of that history and conflict to put it’s hands on the materials that form the future. All of these times exist at once and not one of them hold the spot light. Not one of them forgets each other. Future, Past, Present. They are all present at the same time, all working together to keep civilization progressing.

Mythology

Beirut is a city in one of the countries that comprises the Mediterranean. My family’s origins are Mediterranean and what this experience showed me was the deep connectedness to this way of life and deep history of this part of the world. Beuys needed to come away from the Mythology of the Mediterranean and seek strength from his Nordic Mythology which is an action early in his artistic career that forms a large part of his imprint character. He found a strong connection during his first visit to Scotland and all of its mythologies.

Art gallery-owner, painter and photographer, Richard Demarco: “And so it was that I found myself saying, ‘well when will we meet?’ and he said in his reply, ‘when shall we two meet again in thunder, lightning or in rain…?’ ‘God Almighty’, I thought, ‘ he does know his Shakespeare!’ But he also said, ‘I see the land of Macbeth’. So that was enough. I knew he was coming. I brought him to Scotland for a simple reason and that is that Scotland is the land beyond the north wind where Apollo goes I think every year for a little holiday when he gets fed up with the Arcadian world of Greece to the edge of the world to a space where the idea of Europe being all about Mediterranean has to be rethought. When he first came he explored the one thing I needed to show him which was the experience of Scotland and its wilderness. I took him to the Moor of Ranouch. You have to go through the pass at Glencoe and through, if you’re lucky, storm thunder and lightning until you might find at the other side sunlight and a perfect sunset. And we did in fact find that at Oban with a view of Mull, the mountains of Mull and the idea that just beyond these mountains and the setting sun as you stood beside the fishing fleet at Oban you knew you were in the waters of Fengal. It’s the space where the Celtic imagination has, for millennia, taken flight.” 8

If this was the space where the Celtic imagination took flight for Beuys, then Germany would have been the foundation and ultimate goal of glorification that lead up to this event and which was reinforced by.

As well as a selection of materials, a selection of symbols create the Beuys’ Mythology, which ultimately has its roots in Germanic glorification.

The stag was a particularly powerful symbol for Beuys. He wrote that it appeared “in times of distress and danger” bringing “the warm positive element of life.” He concurred with earlier Christian myths that it was “endowed with spiritual powers and insight.” One of the hallmarks of Beuys’ work is its reliance on his distinctive set of symbols and the different elements used in his work relate to his major themes and narratives – the natural world, sources of energy, human and animal life, and spirituality. His work was also driven by the interest he’d had since childhood in northern European mythology, and the animal characters in these stories. The stag, the hare, the elk and the swan all appear in many of his works.

In post-war Germany such myths had become taboo as the Nazis had used some of these traditional stories and images to bolster their political philosophy. Beuys refused to ignore these associations and instead sought to rehabilitate and reclaim the art of storytelling using emblematic characters. Because of this, Beuys has been credited with having given Germany back its imagination as well as forcing his peers to confront the horrors committed by their generation. 9

This method of reclaiming reforming German National pride and identity would be extended through the works of Ansel Keifer. Another german artist and apprentice of Beuys’ Keifer takes a more obvious approach to this method by taking photographs of Significant Nazi sights of injustice and through the form of painting and sculpture, reconstructing this sight and therefore transforming and healing this site.

Conclusion

Giving even more meaning to our personal experiences as artists and the gifts that we bring to culture through our mediums is the experience we give others.

Sculptor Antony Gormley, on a Beuys exhibition in London, in 1982: “As a man he was just naturally engaging and generous. He gave you his entire attention. There was no sense of having to rush even though the room was full of people. I don’t remember at all exactly what he said, I just got a sense of encouragement. And I think unlike most artists where I think there’s always a sense of territory, a sense of rivalry, distrust, suspicion, none of were present. He had extraordinary eyes. He pierced you with his eyes but it wasn’t quite like that because they were very liquid at the same time so you got lost in them as much as being witnessed by them. And there was this sense of someone that had suffered a lot but had somehow gained through that suffering. I think he realized that art was about in a way understanding who we are, by understanding our roots. And he saw that he had huge therefore responsibility to in some way understand his own past and understand the past of his culture. The other aspect of his work is its call for the spiritual…that in some way we only understand who we are through the making of these otherwise useless objects that in someone chart our passage through time.” 10

Overcoming conflict and turning these horrific crimes of humanity into something tangible to make an imprint on society is the very essence of what we do. This compulsion to create goes beyond a fundamental need to pick up a brush or put our hands in clay. It is a need to go deeper into our psyches as humans and how we relate to each other.

We ask ourselves the tough questions about our existence, and put ourselves through hell trying to find meaning in it all and bring that meaning out of the darkness of hope and into the light of a life giving force. It is, for some of us, the only things that we can do to grasp this concept of living and feel connected within a universe that gives us so much in some ways, and so little in answers or direction.

These things we learn along the way, in our journeys. And we can only hope that these learnings sooth us, connect us, and offer something for posterity.

Notes

1. Schade, Werner. Joseph Beuys: Early Watercolors and Drawings. 2004

2. Ruth. Three Key Valuable Honey Properties. Honey Properties. Benefits of Honey. http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/honey-properties.html. 21 Mai, 2009.

3. What is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD? Health and Outreach. National Institute of Mental Health. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/what-is-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-or-ptsd.shtml. 21 Mai, 2009

4. Beuys, Joseph (Speaker) and Narrator. (2005). Beuys speaks from the archive(Online Audio Recording Track 5). London, England: Tate Modern Washington, sponsored by Bloomberg and produced in association with Acoustiguide.

5. Beuys in Caroline Tisdall: Joseph Beuys (Guggenheim, 1979), p.16-7.

6. “Beirut.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beirut&oldid=292554164>. 17 Mai, 2009

7. Atlas Heelan, Charis. Lebanon: Where the Middle East Meets the Mediterranean. Frommers. November 15, 2007. http://www.frommers.com/articles/4789.html#ixzz0GBDnvKQr&B. 17 Mai, 2009

8. Demarco, Richard (Speaker). (2005). Beuys in Celtic Britain Why Beuys was drawn to Ireland and Scotland (Online Audio Recording Track 7). London, England: Tate Modern Washington, sponsored by Bloomberg and produced in association with Acoustiguide.

9. Unknown (Narrator) (2005). Stags, Goats and other Creatures, Just what are those odd shapes?(Online Audio Recording Track 4). London, England: Tate Modern Washington, sponsored by Bloomberg and produced in association with Acoustiguide.

10. Gromley, Antony (Speaker) (2005). Meeting Beuys, Meeting Sculptor Anthony Gormley(Online Audio Recording Track 3). London, England: Tate Modern Washington, sponsored by Bloomberg and produced in association with Acoustiguide.

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