“To Emphasise Forgotten Things": Joseph Beuys and the Readymade

Monograph dissertation

The life of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) followed an erratic course, taking in occupations ranging from Luftwaffe pilot on the Eastern Front of the Second World War, to that of post-war Green politician; from student sculptor of pious Christian monuments to would-be shaman, pop singer and performance artist.

One curious practice cuts through and unites many contrasting phases of his career: that of collecting and displaying readymade objects. Indeed, it bookends his life: in the 1920s, as a child, Beuys scoured the soil of his native Rhenish landscape in search of discarded nicknacks, like pieces of farming machinery, which he put on impromptu display in little galleries improvised from old tents; decades later, the mature artist was still gathering disparate items—albeit now for display in the grander setting of international galleries.

Ultimately, such readymade objects featured in hundreds of Beuys's artworks. This monograph is the first extended study of their function throughout his career. The dissertation proceeds with a set of case studies. These range from lesser known works, such as Langhaus (dated 1953-62), to the famous Felt Suit (1970), each of which is analysed with reference to recent scholarship on the readymade—often for the first time. A conceptual discussion follows, reading Beuys's use of the form in light of feminist conceptions of the 'homo faber' creative figure as found in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt and other theorists. Such concepts are followed to their more recent use in, for example, the work of Andrea Veltman. This allows Beuys’s work—which, as Corinna Tomberger has argued, centres on the fact of a “wounded manliness in crisis in post-war Germany”—to be connected to theories of gendered labour.