Influences

The term 'social sculpture' was coined by Joseph Beuys in the mid 1970s to describe his 'expanded conception of art'. The evolution of the concept can nevertheless be traced through all Beuys' work -from his understanding of drawing as thinking to his work with the invisible materials of speech, thought and discussion in the Honey Pump and in the Free International University.

In its transdisciplinary perspectives and practices social sculpture is however coming to be understood as even more challenging and radical than it was then.

But social sculpture has roots further back than Beuys. In addition to Beuys' influence in this expanded field, social sculpture is part of a stream of questions and experiments undertaken by thinkers, poets and investigators like Goethe, Schiller, Wilhelm Schmundt and Rudolf Steiner. As we go deeper into Beuys' work we encounter his intensive engagement with the work of such explorers and come to understand the significance of their work in shaping his social sculpture insights and proposals.

In one of the last lectures that Beuys gave (when he received the Lehmbruck prize in 1986) he spoke about the need to "protect the flame" that had inspired and led to this expanded conception of art.

This section of the site maps something of the substance that flowed into Beuys' work then that he saw as coming as much from the past as from the future. Incorporating other modes of radical vision, these past understandings and future causes stream through our transformative work now to shape a more conscious and appropriate future.