Joseph Beuys

stamped with the artist's stamp, dated 1972 and numbered 12/20 on the silver broom.

i.) 140 by 50 by 6 cm. 55 1/4 by 19 3/4 by 2 3/8 in.

ii.) 130 by 52 by 6.5 cm. 51 1/8 by 20 1/2 by 2 1/2 in.

Korff-Stiftung, Ilmmünster

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Amelio Editore, Germano Celant, Beuys Tracce in Italia, Napels, 1978, p. 207, illustrated, (ed. no. unknown, p. 58)

Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys, New York, 1979, p. 271, illustrated (ed. no. unknown) 

The Seibu Museum of Art, Joseph Beuys, Tokyo, 1984, p. 151, no. 79, illustrated (ed. no. unknown) 

Jörg Schellmann, Joseph Beuys, The Multiples, Munich, New York, 1992, p. 94, no. 62, illustrated (ed. no. unknown) 

Alain Borer, The Essential Joseph Beuys, London, 1996, p. 119, illustrated (ed. no. unknown) 

Lenbachhaus, Joseph Beuys im Lenbachhaus, Schenkung Lothar Schirmer, Munich, 2013, p.81, illustrated (ed. no. unknown)

Silberbesen und Besen ohne Haare commemorates an “action” which Beuys first performed in 1972 in Berlin, following a May Day march. Beuys waited until the parade had passed, then started to sweep the rubbish left behind in the marchers’ wake and presented it, bagged, to his Berlin Gallery. By casting brooms in silver and copper and replacing the bristles of the latter with his trademark felt, Beuys de-familiarises the viewer with these ordinary pedestrian objects just as he made us look afresh at the litter he collected after the May Day parade. He turns tools, instruments to work with, into creative instruments and a way to spread his political ideas.