Joseph Beuys - German Artist

Joseph Beuys 
(Portrait of Joseph Beuys - Andy Warhol.)

 Joseph Beuys was a German Fluxus, performance artist, art theorist and pedagogy of art. His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy.
Joseph Beuys was born in 1921 in Germany. In 1940 he joined the military,  He was trained as an aircraft radio operator and combat pilot. At the end of the war he was held in a British prisoner-of-war camp for several months, and returned to Kleve in 1945, on his return from the war Beuys enrolled in the Düsseldorf Academy of Art to study sculpture. He graduated in 1952, and during the next years focused on drawing--he produced thousands during the 1950s alone--and reading, ranging freely through philosophy, science, poetry, literature, and the occult. ( 2, Photo; " I like America and America like me. Performance by J. B)  During the early 1960s, Düsseldorf developed into an important center for contemporary art and Beuys became acquainted with the experimental work of artists such as Nam June Paik and the Fluxus group, whose public "concerts" brought a new fluidity to the boundaries between literature, music, visual art, performance, and everyday life.  As the decades advanced, his commitment to political reform increased and he was involved in the founding of several activist groups: in 1967, the German Student Party, whose platform included worldwide disarmament and educational reform; in 1970, the Organization for Direct Democracy by Referendum, the Free International University and In 1979 he was one of 500 founding members of the Green Party.  Beuys also continued to make objects, installations, multiples, and performances. His reputation in the international art world solidified after a 1979 retrospective at New York's Guggenheim Museum. His career was characterized by passionate, even acrimonious public debate. He is now regarded as one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century.
Joseph Beuys died in 1986 in Düsseldorf. In the subsequent decade his students have carried on his campaign for change, and his ideas and artwork have continued to spark lively debate.