He became a famous post-war German artist who connected ideas and performances to social movements. Beuys was one of the most influential representatives of conceptual and avant-garde art of the 20th century.
In 1964, Beuys established "The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated" as a critique of artists who had not taken part in shaping their community. One year later, he performed "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare” by wandering through a gallery space with honey applied to his face and gold paint on his head while he spoke silently to a dead hare.
In his 1974 performance "I Like America and America Likes Me," Joseph used a cage to house himself with a coyote. Then, in 1982, he created "7000 Oaks" through an environmental initiative that planted 7,000 trees in Kassel.
His artwork “The Fat Chair” (1964) represents a minimal wooden chair filled with animal fat. Fat represents heat, energy, processes of transformation, and physical and psychological "flexibility."
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The Fat Chair” appeared in multiple exhibitions worldwide between modern art museums and major art events. The artistic practice of Beuys, jointly with his other works, served as a major catalyst for conceptual art development and expansion of its artistic possibilities.
“The Pack” (1969) contains 24 living dogs (mostly German Shepherds) in an enclosed space with cars covered with yellow bags of animal litter. People often link dogs to loyalty, trust, and protection. Such confinement conditions for the animals create environments that induce awareness of isolation and feelings of control.
Like Beuys's other artworks, "The Pack" presents questions about social systems and issues of societal management and human social interaction. These interpretations of dogs symbolize those who encounter social containment or monitoring through political structures.