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Joseph Beuy Joseph Beuys (1921 - 1986): Any inquiry into the origins

of the idea of social sculpture will soon come across

Joseph Beuys' 'theory of sculpture'.

 

Genesis of the idea of social sculpture

 

Beuys describes how this theory, and thus of the idea of social sculpture, emerged from his early questions. He explains how reflecting on sculptural form (plastisches Gestalten) always led him to question what the essense of sculpture might be. He was not satisfied with the usual answer that sculpture was a three-dimensional entity in space.

He therefore continued to experiment with and reflect on the whole notion and nature of sculpture.

In doing so he realised that every three-dimensional entity not only has a spatial dimension, but also a temporal and a thermal dimension. To speak of sculpture or form is therefore to speak of something that changes over time and is subject to processes of heat and cold. Beuys chose fat as the substance best suited to making visible these thermal and temporal processes.

In addition to this he also maintained that sculpture could not be identified with material objects alone, but rather that the sculptural element encompasses other, invisible entities as well.

And so it became clear to Beuys that, using the language of art, social processes could equally be described as aesthetic processes. However, in order to be able to perceive the scupltural qualities of these processes, new organs of perception needed to be developed.

A central aspect of the SSRU's work concerns the development of such new organs of perception.

 

 

Joseph Beuys' perspective on 'new organs of perception'

Beuys once referred to these new organs of perception as that which hears, senses and wills. With these inner organs he believed that it was also possible to perceive qualities in social contexts that extend beyond the temporal and the spatial, such as the sound of things and the processes of heat or cold.

Beuys claimed to have experienced such sculptural, plastic qualities, which had not previously existed in sculpture, in the works of Wilhelm Lehmbruck. When he saw Lehmbruck's sculptures for the first time, they called out to him: "Sculpture - something can be done with sculpture! Everything is sculpture!"

But sensing, hearing and willing constitute an inner 'morphogenesis', an inner process of organic formation: listening to what things say, sensing what things want, and consequently finding the inner strength that enables us to act. Thus Beuys can say that thinking itself is actually sculptural - that is, morphogenetic. According to Beuys, "It is in my thinking that the process begins which, through my bodily organs and other instruments, then comes into the world as an impression and a form that is able to inform."

Consequently, Beuys often said how important it was to be accountable for the nature and quality of one's own thinking. He maintained that the question "What can we do?" should always be preceded by the question "How must we think?".

And his answer to this question was the idea of social sculpture. According to Beuys, this idea should be both the motivating force and the plumb line for our thinking about state and society. How can a society be organised so that it possesses the sculptural qualities of a successful work of art? Observing our social forms from the perspective of social sculpture, one cannot help but recognise the diseased state of all existing 'societal sculptures', in fact, of all social organisms.

This was Beuys' diagnosis in the final third of the last century. However, although the organisational forms of social organisms around the world are changing incredibly quickly, we cannot simply anticipate that such changes will take place from this kind of sculptural perspective.

 

The SSRU has taken on the task of raising awareness and encouraging discussion about the structuring of social organisms from such a sculpture perspective.

 

Text: Wolfgang Zumdick Translation: Rachael Barham/Shelley Sacks