Johannes Stuttgen

Johannes Stüttgen is an artist with a special interest in ‘social sculpture’ and interdisciplinary art practices. He studied with Joseph Beuys at the Dusseldorf Art Academy in the 1960’s and was a Founder member of the German Student Party in 1967. By 1971, he had become a master student of Joseph Beuys’ and his tutoring assistant.

Throughout the 1970’s Johannes Stüttgen exhibited his works widely across Germany while teaching art at the Grillo Gymnasium. He participated with Beuys in several of the international Documenta exhibitions. In 1979 he was involved in the co-operation between Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol. In the same year he became a founder member of the German Green Party.

In 1980, he became the co-ordinator of the Free International University that Joseph Beuys had set up, working from a base at the Dusseldorf Art Academy. He has lectured widely on this and other social sculpture work and has been a guest speaker and professor at academic institutions around the world, from New York and Paris to Tokyo.

From 1982 to 1987, Johannes Stüttgen organised several social sculpture project with Joseph Beuys. In 1999, he withdrew from the Green Party but continued to focus on issues of Direct Democracy through his social sculpture work. He continues to do his social sculpture projects across Germany where he is also widely published and gives regular lectures.

He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Cologne, which considers new approaches to art and society and has been Guest Professor at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Art at the University of Hamburg and at the Justus-Liebig University in Giesen.

Ongoing ‘social sculpture’ projects that he has initiated include ‘Art and Economy Expanded’ and the ‘Omnibus for Direct Democracy’, which has involved millions of people in social sculpture processes. Through such projects Johannes is actively linked to the explorations and interdisciplinary enquiries of the Social Sculpture Research Unit.