Sun, 28 Mar 2004

Joseph Beuys’ extended view of capital: people and nature as resources to tackle issues of the future

Achberg, 28 March (NNA) – The German artist Joseph Beuys’ concept of capital, which includes both money and human resources, provides the focus for the Second Beuys Symposium taking place from 3 to 6 June in Achberg near Lake Constance in southern Germany. Under the overall title of “Capital. Youth – Nature – Money“, artists, scientists and educationalists will consider the question how issues of the future can be tackled on the basis of Joseph Beuys’ extended concept of art. The event is organised by the association “Verein zur Förderung des Erweiterten Kunstbegriffs und der Sozialern Plastik e.V.“, Wangen, and the Free International University (FIU). The symposium is supported by Ravensburg district and the Achberg municipality.

“People and nature” were the only resources with which the future could be managed, the organisers write in their statement announcing the symposium. But they, in particular, were placed at risk by expanding globalisation as never before in human history. Using a concept of money which degraded it into a commodity and instrument of power, nature and people were being “exploited with total disregard of the damage caused”, the organisers add in their statement. In contrast, the symposium intends to show how “capital” as defined by Beuys can be protected and developed.

With contributions on subjects such as „Sculpture starts with listening – Contributions to social art“ or „Free money as a human right“ and a performance on healing the monetary system the organisers want to make a contribution to finding a solution to current social problems, based on Joseph Beuys’ ideas. Great effort was required to solve the issues now arising, something which was generally seen as a task of politics. This idea is contrasted by the aim of the symposium to develop a method of social development with the help of art which would take proper account of the human being. Speakers include Johannes Stüttgen, Düsseldorf, Henning Köhler, Nürtingen, Tom Tritschel, Munich from Germany and Walter Kugler from Dornach, Switzerland.

Beuys made art an element of social development and, conversely, recognised society as material for the artist. The artistic method to achieve this can be summarised in the following words of Beuys: „But the cause lies in the future“. In line with this thinking, ideas do not just consists of their content. According to Beuys, they are living entities which also contain elements of feeling and will. They way in which they appeared to people could not just be a matter of the intellect. On the contrary, human beings had to be addressed in their totality with powers and organs which they might not even possesses yet. Here art was the “great teacher“.

Beuys (1921- 1986) is judged to be one of the most important German artists of the second half of the twentieth century.

End/ung/cva

Contact: Verein zur Förderung des Erweiterten Kunstbegriffs und der Sozialen Plastik e.V., Am Schwarzenbach 25, D-88239 Wangen, Germany. Tel.: +49 (0)7528 7734, fax: +49 (0)7528 6028, email: fiu-verlag@t-online.de

Item: N040328-01EN Date: 28 March 2004

Copyright 2004 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/content/