Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim Author(s): Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson Source: October, Vol.

12 (Spring, 1980), pp. 3-21 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778572 . Accessed: 01/04/2014 03:19
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Joseph Beuysat the Guggenheim*

BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH, and ANNETTE MICHELSON

ROSALIND

KRAUSS,

Michelson: Rosalind and I come to a direct experienceof theworkof JosephBeuys somewhat late. From what I know of developmentsin Germanyover the last twenty yearsI have the feelingthat this work,which has had an extraordinary disseminationthroughoutEurope, mustalreadyhave encountered a fairly coherent questioning and analysis,conceivablyby German Marxists.Is thatso? Arewe not likely to rehearsemany of the questions and reservations thatthe workhas elicited in critical German literature? already Buchloh: I thinkwe mustdistinguishbetweentwo confrontations. One is an arthistoricalor art-critical of the the other,political criticism.A work; reception whichI thinkwe can immediately the is moreconservative criticism third, discard, thatthe workencountered then so with very earlyon, decreasingly Beuys'ssuccess. But to my knowledgethe first of theseis virtually nonexistent. The reason is that art criticismin Germany-as far as the contemporary arts are concerned-has, with only two or threeexceptions,simply not been developed. Krauss: So the criticalresponsehas been solely journalistic,a media responseto Beuys,to his having made an impressionin a widerartistic arena, having made a comebackforGermanart. Would thatcharacterize the Germanpress'srelationto Beuys's work? Buchloh: Yes, absolutely.The major criticalfigures in Germany who have written about Beuys-and theyare the exceptions to whom I was referring... Michelson: Could you name them?
* This conversation took place on January5 and was occasioned by thefirst major showingof the workof JosephBeuys to be organizedbyan Americanmuseum.The exhibition,withan accompanying catalogue by Caroline Tisdall, was held at theGuggenheimMuseum, New York,fromNovember 1, 1979 to January2, 1980.

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OCTOBER

Buchloh: Yes, thereare two criticsof contemporary art in Germanythatone can take seriously:one is Laszlo Glozer; the other,Dieter K6pplin, who is actually about Beuysover thepast tenyears;yetin every Swiss. They have written case that I know, theyhave been veryfavorable, verysupportive.And theseare the better qualifiedvoices. The restof the criticshave joined...
Krauss: ... in a kind of hysterical eulogy.

Buchloh: Yes, a totallyuncritical,almost hysterical eulogy, which has increased with theyears.The receptionof Beuysis phenomenal.It began around 1967-68amazinglyenough it took all thattime-and thenit happened like an explosion. Everyonejumped on the bandwagon and contributedhis little eulogy to the general praise. Michelson: What you have said so far is certainly confirmedby Caroline Tisdall's catalogue text.On the other hand, the catalogue also contains at least one interesting to the interest of Beuys's work for a major German testimony writer,Peter Handke. Handke apparently attended a performanceof Beuys's Iphigenie/Titus Andronicusand was deeplyimpressedby it. He accounts forthe interest solicits bothdistancing essentiallyby the way in which the performance and participation,and stimulatesan effort at intellectionon the part of the spectator. Buchloh: But he looks at it in conventional theatricalterms.Handke unfortuabout thevisual arts;thatis obvious from whathe natelydoes not know anything says about Beuys,as well as fromotherstatements. Michelson: That may be so, but what that means is-and I don't thinkthisis a very unexpectedconclusion-that one mustregardthisworkas morethana group of objects forexhibition.Certainly theworksolicitsattention in a numberofways and on a numberof levels. Krauss: The question about Beuys's workas theater, and therefore as something removedfromthekind of criticism implicitly applied to worksof art,and instead relocatedwithin not only thesphereof theater but also thatof an exemplarylifestyle-that is somethingabout which Beuys has been veryinsistent. Buchloh: In thatrespectthe work has definitely receivedcriticism.That was the otherpole of the distinctionI was about to make. In thelate sixties,when Beuys emergedas a major cult figure duringthestudentrevolutionin Germany, people did question whether or not he could be considereda political ally-and when I and theoreticians who wereworking say people I mean thestudents very seriously on political issues. I was thenliving in Berlin,and to everyone I knewthereit was and intellectualpositioncould be understood absolutelyclear thatBeuys'sactivity Andronicus. 1969. Beuys. Joseph IphigenieiTitus

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OCTOBER

only in termsof aestheticideology. No one who was reallyinvolved in political issues took him seriouslyat all. and to enterthepolitical discussionin thelate sixties, Beuystried desperately the in within so activities successfully by engaging Disseldorf Academy. He In he generated to have an fact for the considerfought open academy. proposal able enthusiasmand engagementamong studentsat theacademy;he had a large group of disciples who triedto change the conditionsthere.But still one would have to question the validityand pragmaticsof his political proposals. They representa utopian position. His claim that everyoneshould have access, that there should be no selection process-those issues have some interest;but in there was relationto the moregeneralpolitical concernsof thestudentmovement no possible association. At that time Beuys never questioned the economic structure. When he startedout, and even still, he rejected Marxist theoryand philosophy altogetherand claimed as a major philosophic antecedentRudolph Steiner.And thatshould give us somethingto... Michelson: It's an enormous clue. I want to returnto that and to pursue the genesisof his political direction.But first, although Beuysmayhave been isolated fromthe political studentmovements, he was of course allied with the Fluxus & Happenings group. If you look at Allen Kaprow's Assemblage,Environments, there is a score composed by Wolf Vostell for a happening called Citirama I, which is extremely foractions to be political. It consistsessentiallyof directives carriedout by the participantsin the happening, and those participantscan be ruinedspaces in Cologne. any reader.It involvesthecontemplationof twenty-six This was performed in 1961,but I imagine it dates further back. In any case, Beuys did have contactwith at least one member of the group and probablyotherswho manifestedin their work a concern with the political implications of that landscape. Krauss: But this doesn't show up in Beuys's work. Michelson: That's right,and that's the question I'm asking, because thereis another work by Beuys dated 1966 and entitled Eurasia. It is described as a happening or performanceinvolving a symbolic fusion of East and West, a symbolic fusion manifestedin termsof crossed figures.And then thereis the protestof the hare. That is to say, the components,some kind of sketchof a are therein 1966. What do you have to say about that? political statement,
of Fluxus activities in Germany. He was a key figurein helping George Maciunas stage Fluxus events in Ddisseldorfand elsewhere. That was a task that he handled successfully, and it had its merits. But when the Fluxus group was confronted

Buchloh: In theearlysixtieshe was actingvoluntarily as a fairly efficient organizer

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

with Beuys's own activitiesin the famoushappening at the Diisseldorf Academy in 1963,theywerequite astonished.I remember withEmmet a recent conversation Williams in whichhe describedtheir shockat finding themselves aligned withthis kind of activity.They were simply incapable of making heads or tails of what to do. Beuys was trying Krauss: They couldn't see any way of integrating it? Michelson: You're talkingabout the Americans? Buchloh: Yes. They nevertheless saw themselves welcomedand supported;Beuys as he did forYvonne Rainer and RobertMorris. helped themsetup and perform, That is an example of Beuys'sfictitious to themeetinghe autobiography.He refers had with Rainer and Morrisin Diisseldorfin 1962 as the beginning of a friendship. I've talkedwith Yvonne about it,and she said Beuyswas very helpful,thatit was terrific to talk withhim, but it's a bit exaggeratedto call it thebeginningofa because she's neverseen him since. There are numerous attemptsto friendship a privatemythology, construct which I findreallydistasteful. Michelson: Well, thatis standardprocedurein theartworld.How manychronologies of artists'lives include, "1940, met Kandinsky;1950,became associatedwith Arp"? And you know that it was just a drinkat the Deux Magots or perhaps a but neverrepeated,or mayberepeatedonly on a chance game of chess somewhere, fifteen later. That is a conventionof art-world meeting years historiography. Buchloh: One should look at the kind of work Beuys was doing before he encounteredthe Fluxus artistsin the earlysixties.He had come out of-and we can't reallyblame him forthis-a conventional, academic education. conservative, He had studiedwith Matar&,an honest,authenticsculptorwho had survivedthe Nazi period without being too corrupted, but who was a conservative sculptor committed to... Michelson: Pollock is known as the pupil of Thomas Hart Benton... Buchloh: ... Catholic churchdecoration,and so was Beuys. Beuys's earlywork, under the influence of Matare,is the mosttraditionalsculptureconceivstrongly able for the times. As I said, one can't reallyblame him, because thatwas quite lack simply the situationof postwar Germany,whereone facedan extraordinary of information. So thereis an abruptbreakat thepoint when he is first confronted with the kind of information providedby the Fluxus group. You can see thatit caused an immenseleap forward in his own activities, which is perfectly acceptable as long as one triesto be honest about the factsinstead of falsifying one's backgroundas he does.

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OCTOBER

Krauss: Do you mind a slight digression,since we're on the subject of Beuys's his falsified mythology, background?A digression to the plane crash?I love the look at those photographsof the crash in the Crimea crash. No one can plane withoutbursting into laughter, because it is, ofcourse,highlyunlikelythatBeuys or anyone else, the Tartarsincluded, would have had a camera. Michelson: Has he everbeen challenged on that? Buchloh: No, not thatI know of. I'm fairly familiarwiththeBeuysliterature, and I'm surprisedthat no one everquestioned that. Krauss: Aside fromtheextraordinarily naive attemptto documentthisevent-the notion thatit must somehow be documentedis itselfratherinteresting-is there any otherreason to believe that the crash is a fiction? Buchloh: Certainly all the materialthathe producesas proofof theexperienceis His verydoubtful. The photographic documents are completelycontradictory. own statements to say theleast.When he talksabout theTartars are contradictory, having found him afterthe crash; when he talks about his copilot wearing a seatbeltand therefore having been atomized,while he, having not worna seatbelt because he believes in freedom of movement. . Michelson: I also love the part about his familiarity with the terrain, although withouta map. Buchloh: He also speaks of the Tartarsas recognizinghim as being not German but one of them.He quotes themas saying,"Du nix njemcky, du Tatar"'-you are a Tartar. That is what I call his construction of a myth of origin. And I thinkit is worthwhileto considerthatconstruction, the motivationto include thatmythin the work-biography.You might reiterate that this is standard practice in art, but the creation of the artist-hero is, at least in part, twentieth-century dependent upon the artist'swillingness to contributeto that myth.There is a certainamount of information thatsupportsthatin manycases; but in thecase of Beuys it is a deliberately planned, systematic setup thathas been propounded in recentyears. Krauss: Would you say that the Tartar fable has to do with his placing himself outside a Germancontext? Of establishinga marginin which to operatewhichis not really German? Buchloh: For what other reason would he introducethat fictioninto the work context?What else, if not the necessity to cover,idealize, or adorn an experience which,if limited to historicalaccuracy,would not be particularly heroic?

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

it reflects certain Krauss: What I findcompelling about it is that in structure Christianmyths, such as the fall on theroad to Damascus, a fallingto earthand being reborn. Michelson: Given this notion of rebirth,the first object in the exhibition is, he was bathedas a child, interestingly enough, the bathtubin which presumably whether it is supposed to be the actual one, thatis to say,a relic,or .. Buchloh: That is neverclarified.

JosephBeuys. Bathtub.1960.

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Michelson: And he goes on to speak of the trauma of birth, the notion of salvation-that whole constellationof ideas he's inscribedwithin the biography thatis extremely and it and the exhibition.It is a mythicconstruction intricate, has indeed had considerablesuccess. However criticalone's view of it may be, it withininconsisdoes display an immenseresourcefulness, a kind of consistency not the I would to skills and want underestimate endurance. requiredfor tency, instead of the elaboration and perpetuationof thatmyth.So I wonder whether, this as one not consider phenomenon might symptomatic. simply condemning, There are a number of things that follow fromthis mythopoetic process. And invokedin this shouldn't we also look at thephilosophical and ideological figures work? For example, in an "action" of the seventies,having to do with the texts from St. Johnof theCross, University, organizationof the Free International Plato, St. Augustine,and-naturally-Rudolph Steinerwereread. If you look at Steiner again, it becomes very interesting.I was struck,at the Guggenheim Someone said to exhibition,by theopening itemsthatlooked like pressedflowers. exhibition,"and I said, "What does thatmean?" me, "It's a veryGerman-looking exhibition which Well, what it meant to me was that here was a retrospective thesortof thinga respectableGerman opens with what look like pressedflowers, his naturehike. naturelover would make at home afterhe had finished Buchloh: That would have been done in 1890. Michelson: Yes, and still until the War, at least. Buchloh: The Firstor Second? Michelson: The Second. One knew former inmatesof concentration camps who, as soon as theyhad gained the requisitesixtypounds, wentmountainclimbing. The naturecult is verystrong,although by now it is probablymuch attenuated; yetit existedat least until theSecond WorldWar. Now, we know Steinerbeginsas a Goethean,theeditorof Goethe's scientific and proponentof a philosowritings of nature. If Beuys's work is phy of the organic, of a cosmology, a systemics that is because it is a rehearsal of things veryfamiliar to us; it is interesting, love, essentiallyan elaborate systemof intellectual bricolage. Nature, industry, money-all those high-mindednotions and sacred substances.And then,on the otherhand, thecharming, withelectricity-hisnotion naive,touchingfascination of the battery, forexample. When I came home fromtheexhibition,I looked up in a couple of books something about thehistory of our knowledgeof electricity. Beuys stops around 1830,I would say,just afterFaraday.
Buchloh: Linnaeus is one of his other great heroes. Michelson: Yes, of course. Take his proposal of the stag's antlers as the outward

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

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of the circulatory and the social and economic systems as manifestation system, There's somethingengaging and charmingabout these othercirculatory systems. efforts. Buchloh: What is the charm? of intellectualsystems, of Michelson: There's somethingabout the construction intellectualbricolage,on any level thathas charm-Beuys as a kindof intellectual Facteur Cheval or Grandma Moses. Freud understoodthe aestheticaspects of conceptual systems. Krauss: But the enormouspublic success of Beuys makes the charm problematic and in factratherappalling. Michelson: But I thinkwe have to considerwhat thatsuccess is. Krauss: Okay. What is interesting of rebirth about thismyth is thatit takesplace on non-Germansoil, and is thenrehearsedthrougha relationshipto a historical which are never past. What get assembledare bits and pieces of European history localized in relationshipto the rise of the modernstate.That is, theyhave to do with a vague history of the Teutonic past; it is a history having much more to do witha system offeudalrelationshipsthan thosewhichwould be applicable in any way to the developmentof modern Germany,or the modern world in general. There is a seriesof displacements.The rebirth didn't takeplace in Germany;that historyis somehow displaced. And therefore presumablyone of the reasons this is so compelling to the Germanimaginationis thathe presents a mythiccreature way of consideringthepast withouthaving to consideritas one's own past,never in relationshipto an immediatepast or any specific present. Michelson: I entirely agree with you about that. But I also want to consider the more specifically localized issues which he sometimesaddresses.For example, the of project for that ultimate transvaluationof values which is the redefinition as an ahistorical conception of the cash nexus. There is money is extraordinary which functionsas the support for the something about the system-building productionof objects; that is, theremust be an interesting point of intersection betweenthe system of organic substancesand thatof industry, etc. electricity, Buchloh: I would say thatthatis crucial,and I'm amazed thatno one has criticized him for that. Historical thought on any level-whether general historical thought,art-historical thought,any attemptto acknowledge the specificcondi-

tions of a historical situation-is rejected by Beuys altogether. The historyof postSecond-World-War Germany, which is Beuys's own historical situation; the history of an emerging, economically powerful society; the histories of specificart forms-all of these are ignored, falsified,or mythified.

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Michelson: I think that is so, and, to returnto what I previouslysaid, I cannot imagine that the kind of criticismthat exists in Germany,particularlythat of of this man's views. the total ahistoricity Marxists,would not have stressed Krauss: But maybe we're going to have to imagine just that. Michelson: Is thatreallyso? Buchloh: Absolutely, yes. Michelson: Even in the catalogue, Tisdall says-although she obviously can't handle this-that Beuysmetwith opposition fromthecommunistsand Marxists; he met with criticism,although she isn't specific, because she's involved in a hagiographical enterprise. Buchloh: But so faras I knowshe considersherself to be, ifnota Marxist, certainly a politically conscious critic. As you may know, she has been a critic for the ManchesterGuardian. She has held ratherexplicitpolitical positionson numerous occasions. But it seems that her involvementwith Beuys has mitigatedher because reading her catalogue essay would convince political thoughtentirely, of history. As you say,she's involvedwitha anyone thatshe hiasno sense whatever hagiographyof this individual. Michelson: At firstglance Beuys seems to be someone who plays a role in Germanyanalogous to that of Cage, and not Duchamp, obviously with many greatdifferences. Buchloh: I would strongly oppose any alignmentof Beuys witheitherDuchamp or Cage. I don't thinkthat theycan be compared at all. Neither Duchamp nor created that kind of myth.For Duchamp, it was a matterof Cage consistently theofficial conclusion of his artproduction, at which timehe was privatelifeafter from fictitious mythologized by thepublic. Duchamp nevermade his workbenefit aspects of his biography. Michelson: But Cage is perhaps another matter.All during the 1960sand early 1970s the group around Cage was involved in a veryexplicit articulationof the transcendentalist I a conversation originsof Cagean ideology.I vividlyremember had with Jasper Johns in 1967 or '68, in which I pointed out to him, as he of proposed to "solve the problem of the Harlem ghetto" by the redistribution

wealth through the systematic application of chance, that to an actual inhabitant of Harlem it looked very much as if chance were already operative.

Buchloh: Absolutely. And similarly, one might argue with regard to Beuys that he

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

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intellectuals who have has never acknowledged the historians, theoreticians, worked to solve political problems, certainlymore so than those involved in aestheticpractice.He has neverconsideredHabermas, forexample,nor anyof the other social philosophers and historianswho have grown out of the Frankfurt School-Haug, Negt, Bruickner-whichwould be an obvious thingto do if one were seriouslyconcernedwith political problems. Michelson: It seems veryunderstandableto me that he would not. There is an extraordinary disquisition in the catalogue textson the notion of time. What withinthe Beuysian cosmolstruckme was the attemptto integrate temporality ogy, which requiresa gesturethatI thinkcan only be describedas pataphysical: forexample, his observationthatEinsteinsomehow had to be transcended. What I thinkneeds to be considered,therefore, the workof is not how Beuysconfronts Habermas and the Frankfurt School, but how Beuys's workcan be confronted by theforms and categoriesproposed by Habermas. One would see, forexample, the contradictions workand themythopoetic involvinguniversity processas another of the German middle class. strategy legitimizationby Buchloh: I would be reluctantto align him with thatclass because thereis the evidence that the conservative middle class of the late fifties and sixtiesrejected That is true for the academic art historiansand art Beuys altogether. equally institutions. So during the sixties Beuys was playing the avant-garde role of the outcast. Since the late sixtiestherehas been a dramaticshift in Beuys'sreception, going so faras his receptionby the Chancellor. Krauss: But thechronology needsadditional information. To my you'resketching in collecting knowledge the German middle class did not become interested art until thelate sixties.When we in thiscountry realized thatpop contemporary art had made a tremendous impressionon the Germanartpublic, it was a much discussed phenomenon,and that was in the late sixties.But until then,though there in modernism it mayhave been an interest among certainGermancollectors, was not a widespreadcultural phenomenon,not until the success of pop art. Buchloh: Amazinglyenough one of the strongest of Beuys was early supporters Karl Str6her.In 1968 he bought in its entirety the first museum show of Beuys's work,at the Museum Mdnchen-Gladbach.And at thesame timehe was about to establishthe most comprehensive German collection of pop art. Krauss: The reason I raised thatis thatthegrowthof Beuys'scareerdoes coincide witha rebornattention, on thepartofa widerGermanaudience, to artas a vehicle of cultural experience. Michelson: May I remindyou of thecontext in which thispartofour conversation

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began? I said a momentago thatBeuysmightnot make use of Habermas,but that we can make use of Habermas in thinking about Beuys,to whichyou repliedthat was the system. the sixties outside Beuys working during as an outsider, and he consideredhimselfone. he was treated Buchloh: Certainly The shift in Beuys's fortunesin the late sixties connects with the general of economic achievement.There was a youngmiddleclass that acknowledgement had just come into its own, and which providedsupport for this kind of art. I to say that this new middle class represents don't think it's farfetched a new a complacency that findsits equivalent in the consciousness, a self-assurance, mythof the personality proposed by Beuys's work. This class did not align itself with the German intellectualactivity of the sixties thatprovidedthe theoretical basis fora new politicization.There is, therefore, a specific connectionbetween Beuys's ideological position and the expectationsof the new art public foran artist-herowho will provide the images for a new cultural identity.Freud discusses the imposition of cultural identity throughthe art product. Krauss: Beuys's position thateveryone is an artistis a populist, anti-elitist stance which would presumablybe somewhatoffensive to thatmiddle class. Buchloh: No, because that's not dangerous to say; it's an obsolete surrealist It is, in any case, a quotation fromLautreamont, statement. and at thistimeit'san it because lacks historical insignificant, any empty gesture, precision. It's a no of no relevance, political consequence. position Michelson: What is certainly as you considerthatstatement and othersin striking the catalogue and as you look at the objects in the exhibition is the sense of a rehearsalnot only of a surrealist but ofa surrealist program, inventory-thesilent is involved gramophone,the felt-covered piano.... Beuys again and again with this kind of refabrication. Buchloh: Which can be explained in partby thefactthatthere was no reception of dada and surrealismin Germany. Michelson: That cannot have been true.Surrealismis perhapsanothermatter, but I doubt you can say thatof dada. Buchloh: I said reception.There is a time lag due to fascismand the war. The fifties and to some extentthe sixties were strongly determined by a necessityto rediscover, or even to discoverforthe first time,the impact of those positions. Krauss: It is anotherinstanceof Beuys's strategy of displacement.

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JosephBeuys at the Guggenheim

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Michelson: What exactlydo you mean by displacementin theseinstances? so that it is not recognizablefor recontextualized Krauss: Reality is constantly what it is. Michelson: But it's recognizableto anyone with a historicalsense. Krauss: That's just what I mean. I see Beuys's work as leveling any kind of historicalsense by means of thisconstantstrategy. Michelson: There's an example of this-let's call it displacement-which I find to theperformance ofIphigenie/Titus Andronicus, amusing. I return particularly which involved the simultaneous recital of excerptsfromtwo texts.One was Goethe's Iphigenie, selectedby Beuys as an idealist textin counterpointwith, and contradistinction to, what he calls the realist text by Shakespeare, Titus occur Andronicus.A lot of otherthingsare going on as well, and whatmightfirst that became so importantan aspect to one is the insistenceupon simultaneity of performance work here during the sixtieswith Cage and Cunningham. But the descriptionof this evoked forme, instead,von Hofmannsthal'slibrettofor

for GrandPiano. Joseph Beuys. Infiltration-Homogen

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Adriadne auf Naxos. There, in the first scene, the talentedyoung composer is Ariadne to a totallyphilistinepatron,who has an Naxos, auf presenting opera, to follow. And the young hero finds also commissioneda comedyand fireworks so thathis drama must himselfconstrainedby the patron's miserly insensitivity, with the secular be performed other, simultaneously play. Von Hofmannsthalis, criticismto a systemof production and paof course, addressing a trenchant his "idealist" and "realist"texts to perform tronage.Now, when Beuysundertakes in concert, he is enacting, as avant-garde practice and as an exercise in the of values, the fable of philistinismcreateda half-century before. transvaluation thekind of thingI've been talkingabout, and thekind of Krauss: That is certainly I assume thing Benjamin meant when he said, "Whydo we have to deal withthis as a trenchant or interesting idea of Beuys's when it's been kickingaround in in Beuys's work you avant-gardeaestheticsfor a hundred years?" Everywhere come up against the sense that... Michelson: You've been therebefore. Buchloh: At least once. SometimesI'm not sure whether he's simplya fool or a or perhaps he's a mixtureof both. The rejection of artveryshrewd trickster, historicalinformation thatconditionshis workis eitherintelligent or foolish.His of his unawareness of operating within a specific actual displacement history, context,fulfilling specificinterests, servingparticularends for the new German is apparent.He bourgeoisiemustbe evaluatedin a different way. Here thetrickster is very aware ofpublic relationsand marketing He handles the strategies. perfectly of theartworld.So there is anotherlevelof highlydifferentiated marketing system the role of the savior at thesame time displacement:you simplycannot perform that you are operating withina highlycalculated economic system. All of these factorswould need separateanalysis, but theyare consistentwith regardto the of displacement. strategy Krauss: Perhaps we can understandwhy Beuys would appeal to the German middle class, the new professional class you've described, but how do we account forhis impact in thiscountry at this particularmoment? Buchloh: I would thinkthatthe interest in promotingthisparticularfigure now must be to set the scene forthe coming decade in such a way thattherole of the artistwill be establishedas thatof a unique individual operatingwithinan avantgarde traditionand opposing the bourgeois class. As we know, this is by now a obsolete conceptionof the artist. fairly Krauss: But it is a conceptionwhich you thinktheartestablishment now has an interest in perpetuating?

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

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more so now than ever. Buchloh: Absolutely, Krauss: But we also seem to be enteringa period of voraciousness,of avidityto filecabinets, anything.In that collect anything:teaspoons, postcards,feathers, sense thereseems to be a conflict-althoughI'm sure it can be resolved-between and theneed to give value to everything, theneed foran artist-hero or not whether it is createdby the unique genius. attitudesare Michelson: I think that,in a situation such as thatof the present, not consistent that It and what is is an true. ultimatemanifestation simply you say of what I thinkHabermas called postauraticart;so I'm wonderingif theidea ofa restoration of aura to the workof art is not centralto the launching of Beuys. Buchloh: In thatsense he's a trulycrucial figure. in ethos is that?I'm really interested Krauss: So the revival of the expressionist this. understanding Michelson: I'm not sure thatI understand it, but I do wonderwhetherthatis not involved.Rememberthatwe weretalkingbeforeabout the way in which Beuysis involved with the constructionof meaning. One's first experienceof the Beuys exhibitionis thatone is almost helpless withouttheexplanationssupplied by the artist;the complex symbolicquasi-system guidance, instrucsimply necessitates will "I have tion,thekey,thecode. So thatat every say, point Beuys componentsx, and z such." indicates evokes Somehow the exact x z; such; such, y suggests y, or chartedforyou. defined, symbolicrelationsbetweenthingsare neverspecified, Krauss: They're simplyasserted. of meaning forBeuysdepends upon theconstruction Buchloh: The construction of belief. I think that is verycrucial, because again Beuys is not aware of how problematic meaning has become. If you look only at the twentieth-century and if you further restrict to the visual arts,you will findthat tradition, yourself of meaning. That is virtually everyserious workhas focusedon theproblematics one of thekeyfeatures of Duchamp's work,forexample. If Beuys'smodel certainly of physicsdoes not go beyond 1830, neitherdoes his model of meaning. Krauss: I would say that it dates to considerablybeforethat. By the seventeeth Frenchgrammar and logic had developeda notion ofmeaning thatwas a century, littlemoresophisticatedthan thatof Beuys. But I thinkthisis an aspectofwhat's notion that happening in thevisual artsnow. There seems to be a simple-minded meaning can simply be ascribed to an object by fiat.The childishnessof it, the naivete,is on a par withtheignorancewith which art is generallybeing received.

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JosephBeuys. Felt Objects. 1964-67. (Above.) Honey Pump. 1977. (Below.) (Installation photos: Joseph Beuys Exhibition, The Solomon R. GuggenheimMuseum, New York.)

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Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim

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Michelson: I'd like to ask one otherrelatedquestion. Beuysseems in some way to be reenacting a riteof passage froma traditional, artisanalsocietyto an industrial of that circulation. Perhaps this one; the Honey Pump seems a crystallization passage is also connectedwith the auratic. The studentmovement,schooled in Marcuse,was involvedin thecriticalrejectionoftheclassical Western relationship to nature,thatof domination,mastery. Could it not be thata generation impelled by thatcritiquewould be particularly susceptibleto therevivalof thepeasantlike, artisanal values projectedthroughBeuys'swork?To me, thisis not a question of auratic art alone, but of a whole range of values and relationshipsof our culture and its economy. Buchloh: Beuyscertainly had a strongfollowingamong thosepeople, particularly at the Dfisseldorf docile followers, true Academy.He had dozens ofmostobedient, believers. Michelson: Might it mean that he will now acquire a large following in this country,where thereis a much more organized,largerparapolitical movement foundedon ecological concerns. Buchloh: I don't thinkso. The youngerartists in Germany-and thatis, after all, the contextin which Beuys must be seen primarily-rejectBeuysas a paternalistic figure. And theyalso rejecthis work. They judge his politics within the perof spective his art-politicalactivities.In this area he is veryvulnerable. For example, when it was proposed thatDaniel Buren teachat theDiisseldorf Academy, with the academy,intriguedbehind the Beuys,even though no longer affiliated scenes to preventthe appointment.I thinkthatis the kind of politics thatreally counts. Michelson: In contestingthatappointment,what was he fighting? Buchloh: He tried to disqualify Buren as an artist,arguing that Buren had the studentsand that his work was totallyunimportant.Fortunothing to offer natelyhe was not successful.But I thinkit is a veryinteresting example of what of art,his favorite politics actually means to Beuys.And as forhis understanding artists now are thenew expressionist that painters.They are ofso littleimportance I don't want to name them,but Beuys supportsthem. Krauss: Is it veryimportantforyoung artiststo have his support?
early seventies. At that time, having come out of his classes, having affiliated oneself with that tradition, was regarded as important. But as I said, the younger generation detests the institutionalization of Beuys. With regard to the Guggenheim's decision to mount this exhibition, I think there are many other possible choices more interesting to the North American public than an exhibition of an artist of the fifties.Beuys is, after all, a fifties figure.

Buchloh: I think it no longer is. It was for a period of time during the

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Michelson: But wouldn't Beuys's work be central to our understanding of the general situation in Germanynow? Or do you really consider this work to be peripheral? Buchloh: I thinkit is peripheral.If one wants to understandGerman art of the past twentyyears,one would have to understandthe dilemma of the postwar situation. Michelson: And you don't see Beuys as embodyingthatdilemma? Buchloh: Yes, he does embody that dilemma. But he's not a key figurefor If you wish to understand Germanart of the sixtiesand seventies. understanding the workof Richteror BlinkyPalermo,of Hanne Darboven,or the Bechers, you don't have to know about Beuys;and even less so if you wish to understandthe youngergenerationat work now. Michelson: Then you would say that Beuys's work instantiatesrather than assumes the difficulties, the contraditions of its time. Buchloh: Yes, absolutely.

Joseph Beuys.Eurasia.1966.

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JosephBeuys at the Guggenheim

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