Mondays 4 April 2005 – 25 April 2005, 17.30–20.00

SOLD OUT

Shelley Sacks, interdisciplinary artist and Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit, worked with Joseph Beuys for many years. She is joined by a number of German and UK practitioners in these unique research seminars.

Drawing on Tate Modern’s major Beuys exhibition, the starting point for these sessions is an exploration of the connections between Beuys’s actions, installations and objects and his social process works such as Honey Pump, 7000 Oaks and Free International University. By enabling a closer understanding of Beuys’ work and contemporary social sculpture projects that share similar concerns, participants will have the opportunity to consider a range of expanded art practices committed to facilitating a democratic and ecologically sustainable world.

The seminars are particularly recommended for those interested in discussing strategies and criteria, collaborations and proposals for new forms of socially engaged artistic practice.

Tate Modern  East Room
£65 (£45 concessions), booking required

SOLD OUT


  

Shelley Sacks, interdisciplinary artist and Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit, who worked with Joseph Beuys for many years, will be joined by a number of German and UK practitioners in these unique research seminars. Readings and the online resources of the Social Sculpture Research Unit, the Sustaining Life Project and Greenmuseum will support these seminars and the ongoing of work of participants, and open up access to a network with shared concerns.

Week 1 Joseph Beuys’ theory of sculpture will be introduced as a means of comprehending his work from plant drawings and ‘fat corners’ to the free, democratic socialism of the ‘Third Way’ that was Beuys’ contribution to the Greens. Reference will be made to Schiller’s threefold theory and Steiner’s work on ‘thinking, feeling and willing’, which are central to Beuys’ understanding of the human being, enabling us to get inside Beuys’ well known formulations, that were not simply provocations, like ‘every human being is an artist; ‘art = capital’ and ‘in the universities, an enchanter needs to appear’.

Week 2 An exploration of key concepts in Beuys’ work – like ‘parallel process’, ‘counter image’, ‘warmth work’ and ‘imaginal thought’ that illuminate the connections between his actions, installations and objects and his social process works such as the Honey Pump, the 7000 Oaks and the Free International University. This session will also make reference to the work of Henri Bortoft, the English physicist who studied with David Bohm and whose work on Goethe’s approach to science, offers key insights into imaginal and holistic thought. This session also provides the basis for exploring contemporary interdisciplinary developments in social sculpture and connective aesthetics.

Week 3 Building on Beuys’ ‘expanded conception of art’ and the redefining of the aesthetic that this entails, this session will present projects like the Omnibus for Direct Democracy, Exchange Values and the Sustaining Life Project, in order to consider how the social sculpture ideas are being worked with in the present and what they offer us for our work toward a democratic and ecologically sustainable future. A number of contemporary practitioners and theorists working in related fields will contribute to the session, giving participants an opportunity to discuss forms of connective aesthetics and social sculpture, and how such new methodologies of engagement and understandings can inform their own work.

Week 4 Having laid a basis for connecting the aesthetic and the ethical by regarding responsibility as an ability to respond, and social sculpture as having as much to do with direct democracy as with imaginal thought, participants will be invited to make proposals for ongoing work, or to further consider approaches to expanded art practices that have been presented in the previous sessions. In the course of the four weeks the relationship between the aesthetic or experiential and transformative social process, will therefore not only refer back to Beuys and his predecessors, but forward to ways of working towards a sustainable future. (101)

The seminars are particularly recommended for those interested in discussing strategies and criteria, collaborations and proposals for new forms of socially engaged artistic practice.

Participants may want to read in advance the recently published:

‘What is Art’ – A Conversation with Joseph Beuys, edited with essays by Volker Harlan. Clairview Books. Forest Row. 2004.

and

The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Approach to Science by Henri Bortoft, Floris Books, Edinburgh.

Short extracts from these publications will be provided for participants who have not acquired the books.

This event is related to the Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments exhibition