Compared to the other artists at the gallery, the works of Joseph Beuys have only been shown a few times at Konrad Fischer; in three exhibitions to be exact: Drei Teile des Aktionssockels von „24 Stunden“, 5. Juni 1965, 0-24 h in September 1976 at the gallery’s location on Neubrückstraße in Düsseldorf, dumme Kiste on only one day in May 1983 and hinter dem Knochen wird gezählt - Schmerzraum from December 1983 to February 1984, both exhibitions at the Mutter-Ey-Straße location.
The Aktionssockel was part of the 24 Hour Happening at the Wuppertal gallery Galerie Parnass, run by Rudolf and Anneliese Jährling. In addition to Beuys, the Fluxus artists Wolf Vostell, Charlotte Moorman, Bazon Brock, Nam June Paik, Tomas Schmit and Eckart Rahn were also involved. During the 24-hour action und in uns … unter uns …landunter, Beuys performed similar actions several times in a row: standing, lying or sitting on a box covered with white oilcloth.
Following the score „Energieplan“, sounds, music (George Brecht, Eric Andersen) and text fragments were recorded onto a tape recorder and played back. Next to the box and a jar of Christmas rose extract were other „mysterious items“ and fat objects, as collector Stella Baum recalls. Photographs by Ute Klophaus and Bodo Niederprüm show Beuys leaning his face against a wedge of fat. On the floor one can see the bronze crosses, a fat box, a box of sugar cubes, a felt roll, rabbit bellows, a pudding mold, boxing gloves, spade- and wedge-shaped wooden objects and a walking stick with fat. Beuys held a double spade welded together into a heart shape with both of his arms in front of his chest several times during the action. It was an extremely intense, concentrated and strenuous performance, during which Beuys, as Rudolf Jährling recalls, was the only one to stay awake for 24 hours.
In the score text, Joseph Beuys answers the questions „Wer ist der Krümmer des Raums? Wer ist der Krümmer der Zeit?“ (Who is it to stretch space? Who is it to expand time?) by referring to man as the producer of time and „Überzeit“ (expanded time), of space and „Gegenraum“ (anti-space), as a generator, as the actual „producer of truth.“ In Beuys'
„Wärmetheorie“ notions of the stretching of time and space are expanded ("The formulas of Planck and Einstein were in dire need of expansion.") and, according to Magdalena Holzhey, can be read as a fundamental critique of modern science. Beuys also expands this concept of science with his understanding of warmth as a plastic principle, thus outlining a radical and all-encompassing idea of art as a „Freiheitswissenschaft“ (science of freedom). With his 24-hour action of 1965, Beuys confronted his audience with a completely new kind of holistic, intense, sometimes exceedingly hermetic, irritating actions and performances, with a new mode of artistic action.
No less provoking was the 1983 installation hinter dem Knochen wird gezählt / SCHMERZRAUM, 1941-1983, in which Joseph Beuys completely lined a room in Konrad Fischer Galerie on Mutter-Ey-Straße with soldered lead plates mounted on steel girders. The bunker-like space was illuminated by a bare light bulb, whose dim light illuminated two silver rings of different sizes mounted on the ceiling, symbolizing the head circumferences of an adult and a child. The only object on the floor was a telephone painted gray. Lead as a possible protective shield against radioactive rays, the silver as a highly heat-conductive material, the telephone at least as a possibility of communication.
Pain, physical and emotional suffering, wound and death are themes that run through the entire oeuvre of Joseph Beuys. A special and, at the time, very relevant significance was attached to this thematic field in the context of the debate on the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979 and the arming of both German states with nuclear short-range missiles. This period follows the Anni di Piombo and Brigate Rosse in Italy and the „Bleierne Zeit“ (leaden times) of terror of the RAF in Germany. ”For me, there’s no question - the time bomb is ticking. Everything is so fossilised that hardly any movement is possible. Yes, only behind the bone is counted," Beuys explained in conversation with Heiner Stachelhaus.
Catherine Nichols refers to the Schmerzraum as a threshold space, a symbol of transformation and the experience of transition, a direct confrontation of the viewer with a traumatic situation. "Here it is clear that consciousness is impossible without death. (...) In other words, death keeps me awake," Beuys said in a 1973 conversation with Achille Bonito Oliva. Bruce Nauman's Yellow Room (1973) or Gregor Schneider's u r 8, Total Isolated Dead Space Giesenkirchen (1989), as well as his Sterberaum (Death Room) recently presented at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, are similarly situated in terms of content and once again foster a connection to the contemporary crisis state.
In 1984 Klaus Staeck published a silkscreen print and postcard edition of the Schmerzraum. The installation is now located in the La Caixa Collection in Barcelona. The photographs were taken by Dorothee Fischer, who had been documenting all of Konrad Fischer's exhibitions since 1967. The simple lead and lead solder headband with the dedication "For Conny" was made by Joseph Beuys in 1984.
Konrad Fischer Galerie would like to thank the team of the FRAC Grand Large Hauts-de-France in Dunkerque (Keren Detton, Anne Blondel, Christine Bonte and Mathieu Lamblin), the Service des Musées de France, Paris, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Prof. Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, Dr. Anette Kruszynski, Dr. Isabelle Malz), Anny de Decker and Stella Lohaus, Bogomir Ecker, Karl-Heinz Rummeny, as well as Prof. Dr. Eugen Blume, Dr. Catherine Nichols and Pia Witzmann for supporting the idea for this exhibition. A very warm thank you to Eva, Jessyka and Wenzel Beuys.
The Aktionssockel was part of the 24 Hour Happening at the Wuppertal gallery Galerie Parnass, run by Rudolf and Anneliese Jährling. In addition to Beuys, the Fluxus artists Wolf Vostell, Charlotte Moorman, Bazon Brock, Nam June Paik, Tomas Schmit and Eckart Rahn were also involved. During the 24-hour action und in uns … unter uns …landunter, Beuys performed similar actions several times in a row: standing, lying or sitting on a box covered with white oilcloth.
Following the score „Energieplan“, sounds, music (George Brecht, Eric Andersen) and text fragments were recorded onto a tape recorder and played back. Next to the box and a jar of Christmas rose extract were other „mysterious items“ and fat objects, as collector Stella Baum recalls. Photographs by Ute Klophaus and Bodo Niederprüm show Beuys leaning his face against a wedge of fat. On the floor one can see the bronze crosses, a fat box, a box of sugar cubes, a felt roll, rabbit bellows, a pudding mold, boxing gloves, spade- and wedge-shaped wooden objects and a walking stick with fat. Beuys held a double spade welded together into a heart shape with both of his arms in front of his chest several times during the action. It was an extremely intense, concentrated and strenuous performance, during which Beuys, as Rudolf Jährling recalls, was the only one to stay awake for 24 hours.
In the score text, Joseph Beuys answers the questions „Wer ist der Krümmer des Raums? Wer ist der Krümmer der Zeit?“ (Who is it to stretch space? Who is it to expand time?) by referring to man as the producer of time and „Überzeit“ (expanded time), of space and „Gegenraum“ (anti-space), as a generator, as the actual „producer of truth.“ In Beuys'
„Wärmetheorie“ notions of the stretching of time and space are expanded ("The formulas of Planck and Einstein were in dire need of expansion.") and, according to Magdalena Holzhey, can be read as a fundamental critique of modern science. Beuys also expands this concept of science with his understanding of warmth as a plastic principle, thus outlining a radical and all-encompassing idea of art as a „Freiheitswissenschaft“ (science of freedom). With his 24-hour action of 1965, Beuys confronted his audience with a completely new kind of holistic, intense, sometimes exceedingly hermetic, irritating actions and performances, with a new mode of artistic action.
No less provoking was the 1983 installation hinter dem Knochen wird gezählt / SCHMERZRAUM, 1941-1983, in which Joseph Beuys completely lined a room in Konrad Fischer Galerie on Mutter-Ey-Straße with soldered lead plates mounted on steel girders. The bunker-like space was illuminated by a bare light bulb, whose dim light illuminated two silver rings of different sizes mounted on the ceiling, symbolizing the head circumferences of an adult and a child. The only object on the floor was a telephone painted gray. Lead as a possible protective shield against radioactive rays, the silver as a highly heat-conductive material, the telephone at least as a possibility of communication.
Pain, physical and emotional suffering, wound and death are themes that run through the entire oeuvre of Joseph Beuys. A special and, at the time, very relevant significance was attached to this thematic field in the context of the debate on the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979 and the arming of both German states with nuclear short-range missiles. This period follows the Anni di Piombo and Brigate Rosse in Italy and the „Bleierne Zeit“ (leaden times) of terror of the RAF in Germany. ”For me, there’s no question - the time bomb is ticking. Everything is so fossilised that hardly any movement is possible. Yes, only behind the bone is counted," Beuys explained in conversation with Heiner Stachelhaus.
Catherine Nichols refers to the Schmerzraum as a threshold space, a symbol of transformation and the experience of transition, a direct confrontation of the viewer with a traumatic situation. "Here it is clear that consciousness is impossible without death. (...) In other words, death keeps me awake," Beuys said in a 1973 conversation with Achille Bonito Oliva. Bruce Nauman's Yellow Room (1973) or Gregor Schneider's u r 8, Total Isolated Dead Space Giesenkirchen (1989), as well as his Sterberaum (Death Room) recently presented at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, are similarly situated in terms of content and once again foster a connection to the contemporary crisis state.
In 1984 Klaus Staeck published a silkscreen print and postcard edition of the Schmerzraum. The installation is now located in the La Caixa Collection in Barcelona. The photographs were taken by Dorothee Fischer, who had been documenting all of Konrad Fischer's exhibitions since 1967. The simple lead and lead solder headband with the dedication "For Conny" was made by Joseph Beuys in 1984.
Konrad Fischer Galerie would like to thank the team of the FRAC Grand Large Hauts-de-France in Dunkerque (Keren Detton, Anne Blondel, Christine Bonte and Mathieu Lamblin), the Service des Musées de France, Paris, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Prof. Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, Dr. Anette Kruszynski, Dr. Isabelle Malz), Anny de Decker and Stella Lohaus, Bogomir Ecker, Karl-Heinz Rummeny, as well as Prof. Dr. Eugen Blume, Dr. Catherine Nichols and Pia Witzmann for supporting the idea for this exhibition. A very warm thank you to Eva, Jessyka and Wenzel Beuys.