Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, but he was also an important social activist, ecologist, and political theorist. After an early neo-Dadaist phase, Beuys ‘resigned from art’ as the creation of elite objects and developed instead a unique kind of politically and spiritually charged performance art that he called “social sculpture.”

Some of his most famous “actions” were shamanistic rituals evoking the lost nature-wisdom of the coyote, the hare, and other ‘animal helpers’; others, such as the planting of 7,000 oaks and basalt plinths in Kassel, Germany, were more overtly ecological. Beuys’s utopian politics led him to create a political party for students, then an alternative university; eventually, he became one of the co-founders of the German Green Party. He sought to heal the great wound of the Cold War by seeking a political ‘third way’ in concepts similar to those pursued by theorists of the Prague Spring.

Inspired by Schiller and Steiner, Beuys believed deeply in the power of art to develop human potential, and he adopted Novalis’ claim that “Everyone is an artist” as his own motto. This course will provide an introduction to these many aspects of his life and work, with special attention to their place within the larger contexts of German politics and intellectual history.

Class Format:

As a Distance course, all aspects of this course will be fully compatible with remote online learning.

Learning Mode: This course will be asynchronous and will use canvas for all asynchronous online components.

Course Testing/Assessment: asynchronous