Explore the performance lecture, or ‘Action’, that Joseph Beuys delivered 50 years ago in the Ulster Museum.
On the 18th November 1974, the German artist Joseph Beuys gave a performance lecture, or ‘Action’, in the Ulster Museum Fine Art Gallery.
As was his practice, he illustrated the lecture on blackboards that have been in the museum’s collection since that day.
Joseph Beuys
Beuys was a German artist, theorist and environmental activist. He worked across multiple media, primarily performance and sculpture, with drawing at the heart of all his activity. He spoke on how these creative outputs, and all aspects of life, fed into each other creating 'social sculpture'.
Beuys came to Belfast in 1974 as park of the touring exhibition 'The Secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland'. On the 18th of November, he gave a four-hour performance/lecture in the Ulster Museum.
The tour was organised by art critic Caroline Tisdall. Of Beuys, she said
'Everyone is an artist' is the clearest formulation of Joseph Beuys' intention. It means a widened concept of art in which the whole process of living itself is the creative act.
Beuys in Ireland
Beuys' interest in Ireland began in the 1940s, initially from the similarities in geology to the rest of Northern Europe. Beuys was particularly interested in boglands as places that captured huge active ecosystems, preserved history, and made fuel - linking to many of the ideas he championed.
Mythology and ancient Celtic symbolism also influenced his work. Ireland reappeared in his practice throughout his life, such as his sculpture 'Irish Energies', a sculpture of peat briquettes smeared with butter.
The Blackboards
Beuys had been using blackboards in his performances, or 'actions', since the early 1960s as part of his 'Fluxus concerts'. Fluxus was an interdisciplinary community of artists who focused on the artistic process instead of the finished product.
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Beuys chose blackboards because they were an active form of communication and could be changed at various points of an 'action'.
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In the Ulster Museum, Beuys began his lecture by drawing the triple spiral sign (or triskele), found on the megalithic tomb at Newgrange, Co. Meath. He felt it signified continuity as well as organic or 'implosive' energy.
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The Celtic imagery employed in these four panels symbolised, for Beuys, the completeness of life and our interdependence upon one another.
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The Lecture
Beuys proposed the idea of art and creativity being at the centre of all aspects of society, presenting this as his concept of ‘social sculpture’ and inciting the potential for mass societal change through creative thinking.
Central to the lecture was the idea that, historically, art was perceived as being for a minority; fitting within strict disciplines such as sculpture and painting.
Beuys proposed that art could be anything and was for everyone in society.
Linking art to politics, economics, nature, community and environment allowed everybody to participate in forming the society of the future. Over the course of the lecture he spoke about economics, nature, politics, technology, environmental conservation, psychology, feminism and revolution. He told the audience they had the power to make change, and that the current political systems did not represent the needs of all people.
The lecture became a key moment in the history of Belfast art. Listen to an excerpt below.
Dear friends, I try to speak about art as a revolutionary power.
Revolutionary in this way that the art could reach all people in society.
We see that effectively the productivity of these special fields in art is fully divided from life. So now from the point of view of the majority of the people living on this earth, this activity looks for the most living beings as a luxury, as a luxurious article or as behaviour of connoisseurs. Sometimes they say it is only an activity for privileged people, an activity of minorities, an activity not reachable to the body of the society in the whole.
I was not so much interested to change the behaviour in special fields only. I was trying to change the whole understanding of art.
The methodology of this tried to find, in widening the understanding of art, it is enlarging the understanding of art to reach now, not only the artist - and tries not to reach only the activity in the so-called culture in this already existing form, it tries in this area to reach everybody's individual point where he is a creative being, where he is an artist.
And when I reach this point in the differences of the society, this idea of art is related to all fields of the body of the society, and is related to everybody's individual potential ability as an artist, as a creative being.
Once more related to the principle of social sculpture, how could everybody participate in moulding, forming the society of the future.
Action, Society, Performance and Change
There were a number of local artists in attendance at Beuys' lectures in Belfast in 1974. These performances, and the subsequent activity around his visits, led to a large cohort of artists from Belfast travelling to Documenta in 1977, where they were central to activities during the '100 Days of the Free International University'.
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Documenta is an international exhibition of contemporary art that takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. '100 Days of the Free International University' was held at Documenta in 1977 from the 21st June until 1st October. The 13 consecutive workshops were held to inspire 'radical and creative new thinking' and included trade unionists, lawyers, economists, politicians, journalists, community workers, actors, musicians, and young artists. Northern Ireland was a huge presence, with many of those in attendance at Beuys' Belfast lectures taking part in three workshops that specifically related to the north:
Periphery Workshop - the future of small countries and societies excluded from political power
Northern Irish Workshop - A workshop in contrast to the one-sided interpretations found in the media, it showed the energy of the Northern Irish people and examined the 'real roots' of the Troubles
The Thirteenth Workshop - An analysis of the experience of the hundred days, highlighting the diversity and symbolised by an image of the Giant's Causeway
