Joseph Beuys

Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf
Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart (acquired from the above in 1984)
Sotheby's, London, Contemporary Art, 22 June 2006, Lot 209
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Lucerne, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Joseph Beuys, Michael Buthe, Franz Eggenschwiler und die Berner Werk-Gemeinschaft, Markus Raetz, Dieter Roth, 1970
Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Beuys zu Ehren, 1986, p. 197, illustrated
Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Joseph Beuys: Natur Materie Form, 1991-92, p. 164, no. 231, illustrated
London, Tate Gallery; Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie; Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein; Tübingen, Kunsthalle; Hamburg, Deichtorhallen; Hamburg, Kunsthalle; Vienna, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Sammlungsblöcke: Stiftung Froehlich, 1996-97, p. 75, no. 62, illustrated in colour
Karlsruhe, Museum für Neue Kunst, KunstSammeln, 1999-2000
Karlsruhe, Museum für Neue Kunst, on temporary loan 2002-03
Berlin, Galerie Bastian; Humlebæk, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Joseph Beuys: Zeichnungen/Drawings, 2014, n.p., no. 65, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good and original condition. The sheet is attached verso to the mount in several places and undulates slightly. All of the collaged elements are stable. There are light creases which are likely to be original, and small spots of discolouration in places, most notably in the lower left quadrant.
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“Beuys' drawings make it evident that he was extremely well educated in the craft and technique of the genre, as well as in the visual tradition in which he worked. His earliest work already depended on two ideas about the description of the world: the one perceptual derived from observation and personal experience, the other arbitrary and measured, 'objective', and cerebral.”

As a self-appointed shamanistic figure, Joseph Beuys acts a mediator between the heavens or the underworld and the human realm, and his powers are transmitted through animals and objects - including art. For Beuys, art is a channel for life force and a healing tool. Ever since his spiritual awakening - according to his own personal legend, this occurred after being brought back to life by nomadic Tatars who healed him with fat and felt after his plane crashed in Crimea during the second World War - Beuys got consumed with the project to awaken viewers’ spirituality through the redemptive power of his art. 

With its pseudo-scientific title and style, partly sculptural and partly Dada-esque quality due to the collaged elements, and use of Braunkreuz in a delicate rain of pigment reminiscent of rust, dried blood and dirt, Strahlende Materie, Zwei Aufgelegte Polstäbe (Radiating Matter, Two Laid Down Poles) invokes messianic interrelations between the medium used and the real-life context. Made from a type of commonplace household paint, Braunkreuz became one of Beuys’s preferred medium’s alongside felt and fat, which he viewed as ideal channels for shamanistic power. He first started using the paint in 1958, a year before the current work was executed, and named it Braunkreuz (which literally translated means “Brown Cross”) after the shape he first used with the pigment. The made-up name also conjures up associations with such far-ranging notions as Christianity, healing and medical care (Red Cross), and occultism. The present lot performs as an exquisite allegory for Beuys' ambitious creative enterprise: to collect, channel and disseminate artistic and sacred current on the broadest social scene.

Bernice Rose

Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys, 1993, p. 78