You know, I'm starting to understand just how much Santi loves showing off all of these crazy artists. Needless to say the last few classes have been intense. Anyways, we recently learned about this German artist by the name of Joseph Beuys, and let me tell you, Orlan has nothing on this guy when it comes to craziness. Beuys grew up around the time the infamous Third Reich came to power. Upon graduating school in 1941 he joined the German air force and was an airplane radio operator for them until the end of the war in 1945. It wasn't until after the war that he really used his artistic talents. For more biographical info on Beuys, I found this website to be pretty informative.
Now on to Beuys' artwork. Beuys work was known for its shock value, and for its unpredictability. Beuys mainly focused his works on humaism and social philosophy. His most famous work was a performance piece, and believe it or not one of his first pieces altogether, known as How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, and yes a dead hare was actually used for this piece. Beuys would lock himself inside a glass chamber with a dead hare, which meant that the audience would only be able to view him form the outside. Beuys would then have an animated conversation with the dead hare, none of which the audience could hear. Literally, the audience would watch him talk animatedly to a dead hare, and not even know what he was saying. The reason I know this piece was so influential is because despite its gruesome nature, it is one of my favorite pieces of his, and I can't get the images of it out of my head. Beuys made many more works that had a profound impact on art in the 20th century, and he became one of the most influential artist of his time. Here is a really good website I found that has more of Beuys' works
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