Joseph Beuys | Rose for Direct Democracy

Joseph Beuys

Rose für direkte Demokratie 

Heidelberg, Germany: Edition Staeck, 1973

2 x 2 x 13.25"

glass graduated cylinder with inscription, rose

Edition of 440 signed and numbered copies

"At the documenta 5 exhibition in Kassel, West Germany in 1972, Beuys established a ‘political bureau’ for the Organisation for Direct Democracy Through Free Collective Referendum, a group he had recently co-founded. Throughout the hundred days of the exhibition, he spoke and debated with exhibition visitors, putting forward his ideas for reshaping society through creative activity. Though his proposals were often radical, Beuys worked hard to distance himself from groups like the Red Army Faction (R.A.F.) in West Germany and the Red Brigades (B.R.) in Italy, who at this time were advocating violence as a means of achieving social revolution. In contrast to this position, Beuys emphasised his wish for a more peaceful, evolutionary route to societal development.

On his desk at documenta 5 stood a slender glass vase, in which a fresh-cut red rose was placed each day. The multiple Rose for Direct Democracy derives from this vase, but consists of a graduated cylinder, on which the work’s title is inscribed. Spiraling upward from the cylinder’s base, the inscription follows the direction of the rose’s growth, evoking the smooth trajectory along which Beuys hoped to see society progress. The petals of the rose, which differ radically in appearance from the rest of the plant, became a signifier of this process in Beuys’s eyes, since they emerge by means of a gradual transformation of its leaves. As he noted in this connection several years after the exhibition, ‘Bud and bloom are in fact green leaves transformed. So in relation to the leaves and the stem the bloom is a revolution, although it grows through organic transformation and evolution.’”

- Old Pinakothek

Collected Postcards

 

Felix Droese turns 73 today. 

Yoko Ono | A Hole To See The Sky Through

Yoko Ono

A Hole To See The Sky Through

Heidelberg, Germany: Edition Staeck,  1971

10 x 15 cm

Edition size unknown

While this card (the earliest iteration of the work in multiple format, that I'm aware of) dates the piece to 1971, elsewhere the work is credited to 1964 and even 1962. I'm not going to attempt a scholarly and comprehensive catalogue raisonné of the postcards, but over the next few entries I'll post other examples of the cards, as well as covers, tributes and parodies from other artists. 

The concept can be traced back to the 1961 score based work Painting to See The Skies, which asks the reader to 

Drill two holes into a canvas

Hang it where you can see the sky

(Change the place of hanging. 

Try both the front and the rear windows,

to see if the sky is different).

A Painting to See the Sky III proposes

See the sky between a woman's thighs.

See the sky between your own thighs. 

See the sky through your belongings by making holes in them. 

ie. pants, jacket, shirt, stockings, etc. 

The sky features prominently in Ono's work, something she shared with fellow Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks, whose painting she used for the cover of Plastic Ono Band: Live in Toronto (see below). Other examples include Key to Open the Skies, Sky Event for John Lennon, and the song "Sky People", from the 1985 LP Starpeace.

Sky Machine from 1965, is a coin-operated dispenser that produces handwritten cards with the word "Sky" printed on them. Ono said "I would like to see the sky machine on every corner of the street instead to the coke machine. We need more skies that coke."

Clouds, too, are a frequent motif in the artist's work. "Cloud Piece" from the artist book Grapefruit, invites the reader to

Imagine the clouds dripping. 

Dig a hole in your garden to put them in. 

The word 'imagine' and some of the other concepts in the book inspired John Lennon's signature song of the same name, and the above text features on the verso of Lennon's 1971 LP of the same name (designed by Ono's Fluxus friend George Maciunas). The text was later materialized into the object A Shovel to Dig a Hole for the Clouds to Drop In. 

Together Ono and Lennon made the little-seen film Apothesis, which features the artists and camera in a rising hot air balloon. As the camera ascends into the sky, the frame goes white for several minutes, testing the patience of the viewer. Those who remain are rewarded when the camera rises above the clouds and reveals the sun and a beautiful cloudscape. 

I'm wary of simplistic origin stories (Joseph Beuys and his downed plane leading to the use of fat and felt in his work, for example) but Ono recounts a time from her early childhood during World War 2 where she was hiding in a barn with her brother, homeless and hungry, after her family fled the city due to US bomber planes. She describes them laying on the floor of the barn looking up at the sky through a crack in the ceiling, discussing imaginary menus of food they wished they could eat, to stave off the hunger. 

This is likely an inspiration for the postcard work, and many other ideas and themes that run through her practice. It's a simple poetic conceptual proposal that facilitates looking at the world in a slightly different manner. 

Above is the original 1971 version, published by artist Klaus Staeck. Edition Staeck has published numerous postcards by artists, including Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Robert Filliou, Sigmar Polke, Ben Vautier, and Dieter Roth, who also responded to Ono's card (see future post).

Joseph Beuys | Filzpostkarte

Joseph Beuys
Filzpostkarte
Heidelberg, Germany: Edition Staeck, 1985

10.5 x 15 x 0.9 cm.
Unlimited edition, with 100 copies signed by the artist

A postcard made of Beuys’ signature material, possibly a pun on the word Feldpostkarte – a postcard sent through the German military postal service to and from soldiers in the battlefield. Beuys also produced a wooden (Holzpostkarte) and PVC version (Honey is Flowing).

Joseph Beuys | Stamp Sculpture

Joseph Beuys
Stempelplastik  (Stamp Sculpture)
Heidelberg, Germany: Edition Staeck, 1982
19 x 10.5 x 15 cm.
Edition of 35 signed and numbered copies [+ 3 AP]

Thirty-seven copies of the PVC postcard the artist had published Staeck eight years prior, and a Hauptstrom rubber stamp.

Alex Snukal | Me and Julio Down by Diter's Dung Hole

Alex Snukal
Me and Julio Down by Diter's Dung Hole 
Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2009
10 x 15 cm
Edition of 25
$50.00 CDN

Snukal responds to a postcard edition originally created by Yoko Ono in 1971 and altered by Diter Rot the following year (see below posts). Making literal a quote from a Julio Cortázar novel that invokes a euphoric epiphany as equivocal to pushing a pebble through one's asshole, Snukal one-up's Diter with a third iteration.

Each card is hand altered by pushing a stone through its centre hole, and with the following silkscreened text:

"…look at the world through the eye of your asshole and you’ll see patterns pretty as can be, the pebble had to pass through the eye of your asshole…"

From Hopscotch, Julio Cortázar, 1966



Available at the London Art Fair later this month, or via nothingelsepress@rogers.com.