TÜBINGEN.- The life and work of Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) are closely associated with the Kunsthalle Tübingen. In the early 1970s and up to the turn of the century, the artist was not only represented several times in exhibitions in the university town, works by him also made their way into the museum’s own collection.

Over the past years, increasingly discussions of Beuys’ oeuvre have ranged around the issue of it being so strongly marked by his experience of the Second World War. Adopting the role of the artist-shaman, Beuys aimed to sensitize people to transcendental dimensions and the integrity of all life. In a decidedly aesthetic response to the phenomena of crisis and upheaval, he developed his own undogmatic art-religion, which included not only religious traditions but also elements of myth, folk culture and anthroposophy.

Under the banner of an “extended concept of art”: Beuys as mediator between pre-modern and contemporary worlds of experience

Not only did Beuys thus radically expand the definition of art in the direction of a socio-anthropological concept. Like no other 20th century artist, he integrated premodern imaginary worlds and rites into modern society in order to create an awareness of the connections between all living creatures. As early as the 1960s, for example, in his “energy plan” Beuys demanded a new empathy with the world of animals and plants. Today, therefore, the artistically visualised awareness of the energies of the earth and of nature, which he understood spiritually, can be regarded as having the potential for reconciliation with, and the healing of a planet that is out of equilibrium.

The exhibition Bewohnte Mythen / Inhabited Myths in der Kunsthalle Tübingen is contextualising Joseph Beuys’ oeuvre by means of more than 100 works from the period of their genesis – post-war art with its receptivity for myths. In addition to drawings, sculptures and videos by the artist, therefore, the exhibition also includes works by Willi Baumeister, Hermann Nitsch, Richard Oelze, Meret Oppenheim and Fritz Winter. Furthermore, a chronological path around the exhibition will illustrate how pre-modern traditions are interwoven like a red thread throughout Beuys’ extensive oeuvre – from his early work to his late actions and political performances. Starting with drawings dealing with motifs from folk belief, via the art of healing and up to the 1960s during which – in the context of the Fluxus and Happening movement – he used rites as magic catalysers in his actions so as to address his audience’s senses and provoke their unconscious. From the viewpoint of symbol theory and cultural science, this exhibition, conceived and curated by Nicole Fritz, will facilitate access to an understanding of Beuys’ individual artistic idiom and his so artistically articulated interpretation of the world.

The Bewohnte Mythen exhibition along with the framework programme also take into account the latest research findings from the Museum Schloss Moyland on the theme of Beuys and National Socialism, as well are current perceptions of Beuys’s oeuvre from a feminist and a human-animal studies viewpoint