Joseph Beuys Quotes

Every Man Is An Artist.

After I Am Dead I Would Like People To Say: 'beuys Understood The Historical Situation. He Altered The Course Of Events'. I Hope In The Right Direction.

Everyone Is An Artist.

The Only Hope I Had Was When (in His Youth)i Saw One Day A Photograph Of A Sculpture By Wilhelm Lehmbruck, A German Sculptor Of Expressionistic Style. This Was Perhaps The Only Example, Lehmbruck, Between My Sixteenth To Nineteenth Years In Which I Saw A Possibility For Art To Be Principally Of Interest To Innovate Some Things, Instead Of Writing A Very Boring, Naturalistic Repetition Of What Is Already Done By Nature.

I Describe It ( The New Aesthetics) 'radically': I Say Aesthetics = Human Being. That Is A Radical Formula. I Set The Idea Of Aesthetics Directly In The Context Of Human Existence, And Then I Have The Whole Problem In The Hand, Them I Have Not A Special Problem, I Have A "holography" (reacting On A Former Suggestion Of The Public As A Slight Joke, Fh) I Don't Know Exactly What A Holography Is.. (1973

Every Man Is A Plastic Artist Who Must Determine Things For Himself.

So When I Appear As A Kind Of Shamanistic Figure, Or Allude To It, I Do It To Stress My Belief In Other Priorities And The Need To Come Up With A Completely Different Plan For Working With Substances. For Instance, In Places Like Universities, Where Everyone Speaks So Rationally, It Is Necessary For A Kind Of Enchanter To Appear.

Let's Talk Of A System That Transforms All The Social Organisms Into A Work Of Art, In Which The Entire Process Of Work Is Included... Something In Which The Principle Of Production And Consumption Takes On A Form Of Quality. It's A Gigantic Project.

I Work In The Field Of Art, And You Know How During A Period Of Marxist Ideology, Fewer People Are Inclined To Believe In The Power Of The Culture As A Whole: They Believe In The Revolutionary Potential Of Economics, Class Struggle Theory.. ..therefore It's Time To Show That Art Means The Power Of Creativity, And It's Time To Define Art In A Larger Way, To Include Science And Religion Too..(1973

Money Has To Undergo A Metamorphosis Again, It Has To Relinquish Its Role In The Market Economy And Engage In An Economy Of Capacities. Then We Would Be Concerned With Human Creative Productivity. And We Would Come Full Circle, Since Each Human Being Can Then Act Within His Company As Co-creator Of The Future, Can - In Full Dignity - Contribute To Shaping This Future.

I Think The Tree Is An Element Of Regeneration Which In Itself Is A Concept Of Time.

Man Is Really Not Freeing Many Aspects. He Is Dependent On His Social Circumstances, But He Is Free In His Thinking, And Here Is The Point Of Origin Of Sculpture. For Me The Formation Of The Thought Is Already Sculpture. The Thought Is Sculpture.