On Friendship/(Collateral Damage) IV

How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist
[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]
(September 2021 - February 2023)
A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys
Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws
© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV - How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist
[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]
('Hasenjagd' is the code word for killing Jews during World War II) centers on Joseph Beuys and Joseph Sassoon Semah takes us on a journey of critical analysis of Beuys. Linda Bouws is the curator. 

Joseph Beuys (1921, Krefeld - 1986, Dsseldorf) is one of the most influential post-war German artists, who became particularly famous for his performances, installations, lectures and Fluxus concerts. He has been honored as a great artist throughout his life. Even 36 years after his death, he is still regarded as one of the most important post-war German artists, as can be seen in the many exhibitions and other activities that took place in the large-scale celebration 'Beuys 2021. 100 years'. 

Beuys is best known as a freedom-loving and cosmopolitan artist, revered by his Soziale Plastik based on the idea that everything can be art, and everyone is an artist, Jeder mensch ist ein Kunstler; his involvement with Die Grünen, the ecological movement, and the importance of art for society. He manifested himself as the new post-war Messiah, as a healer, as a shaman for the Germans, to free himself from being a perpetrator and to free the Germans of their guilt. 

Beuys mythologized his war history as a National Socialist and Germany's problematic and post-traumatic stress disorder. In this way he wanted to make a new world possible in which he could transform nazism, fascism, WWII and the nation trauma into his own fake biography via his artworks. During this 100-year's event little of these controversial aspects of Beuys' work, values and ideas were focused upon. As part of this celebration, it is about time to adOd a more critical eye on Beuys' work and his relationship to Germany's post-war history. 

Beuys' past with the Hitler Jugend and his trivialisation of National Socialism, his self-mythologising as an artist-shaman who was allegedly saved by Tatars with fat and felt in 1944 after a plane crash in Crimea, the anthroposophical influence of Steiner on his thinking and works, the secret meaning of his symbols, his role as a messianic martyr and savior of post-war Germany, his 'ecological' significance have been explored in our project. In short: Who is Beuys truly? How should we interpret Beuys in the future? 

Joseph Beuys and Joseph Sassoon Semah, two ex-soldiers, two artists.
Joseph Beuys was an old gunner and radio operator under the German Air Force during WWII;
Joseph Sassoon Semah served in the Israeli Air Force.
Who is the (authentic) Victim and who is the Victimizer? 

We organized activities in and outside the immediate world of the visual arts in order to create a platform and gain access to a wider audience, partly because (German) art museums appeared to be wary of a stain on the reputation of Joseph Beuys. As our project demonstrates, there is need to approach his thinking and art with skepticism.

     

 

LANDGOED NARDINCLANT-AMSTERDAM GARDEN
Laren, 13 September -24 October 2021

GOETHE-INSTITUT AMSTERDAM
28 October 2021 - 7 January 2022

Exhibition
Performance
Lecture Mati Shemoelof

 

 

GOETHE-INSTITUT AMSTERDAM
11 November 2021

Performance
Lecture Rick Vercauteren

LUMEN TRAVO GALLERY
Amsterdam,15 January - 17 February 2022

Performance
Solo exhibition On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV

 

DUITSLAND INSTITUUT, UvA: BUSHUIS
OOST-INDISCH HUIS 24 March - 24 June 2022
Installation Joseph Sassoon Semah

DUITSLAND INSTITUUT SPUI25 7 april 2022, 17.00 hrs
Meeting: Footnotes accompanying the work of
Joseph Beuys and Joseph Sassoon Semah, Hans Peter Riegel

KUNSTMUSEUM DEN HAAG 29 January - 29 May 2022
exhibition Boris Lurie & Wolf Vostell: Kunst na Auschwitz

MAARTEN LUTHER KERK,
Amsterdam, 15 mei t/m 15 juli 2022
,
Tentoonstelling
Performance
Meeting Andreas Wöhle en Joseph Sassoon Semah:
Joseph Beuys en Christus impuls

GERHARD-MARCKS-HAUS, BREMEN
April 2022 - February 2023

Exhibition

 

DEUTSCHE BANK NEDERLAND,
Amsterdam, May 24 2022

Exhibition
Performance
Lecture Arie Hartog

GALERIE DJDEBOER HUISARTS,
10 July - 8 October 2022

Exhibition
Performance

 

STADTMUSEUM DÜSSELDORF
14 september 2022
Vortrag Hans Peter Riegel - Joseph Beuys - Eine Fake Existenz

REDSTONE NATUURSTEEN & PROJECTEN
15 January - 15 February 2023
Installation

BOOK On Friendship/(Collateral Damage) IV

Metropool International Art Projects
Contact: Linda Bouws
lindabouws@gmail.com
Mob +31(0) 620132195