ISSN 1753-9854 AUTUMN 2005
Beuys is Dead: Long Live Beuys! Characterising Volition, Longevity, and Decision-Making in the Work of Joseph Beuys
RACHEL BARKER AND ALISON BRACKER
 |
Fig.1 Joseph Beuys Felt Suit 1970 (photographed on acquisition, 1981) Felt Edition 27, no. 45 Tate Archive. Purchased by Tate 1981, de-accessioned 1995 © DACS 2005  View in Tate Collection |
For over four decades, artists have used organic or fugitive materials in order to instigate and interrogate processes of stasis, action, permanence, and mortality. Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), along with his contemporary, Dieter Roth (1930-1998), pioneered this practice, probing concepts of energy, warmth, and transformation through the intelligent use of organic materials such as fat. But unlike Roth, who consistently advocated the unconstrained decomposition of his work, Beuys’ position on decay, change, and damage varied from statement to statement, and from piece to piece. As one conservator familiar with the artist’s work noted, in order to understand Beuys’ personal philosophy regarding conservation, ‘it would be necessary to read all his interviews and statements ... and even after this, one still might be restricted to speculation as to what he ... meant in this special case.’1 Unsurprisingly, museums housing Beuys sculptures and installations generally lack consistent counsel from the artist pertaining to preventive conservation, intervention, and restoration of his work.
Together
with codified conservation principles, artists’ statements
and documentation (ideally, recorded at the time of acquisition, and at
vital points in the work’s lifespan) greatly inform conservation
decision-making. But when deprived of a reliable stance from the artist, how can
museums address Beuys’ objects and installations that depend upon both
material and conceptual activity in order to persist as viable works of art? How
do museums define the specific constitution of a Beuys piece, its mutable
elements, and its lifespan? The Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, and Tate
in London, have confronted, or are currently confronting, these questions. As we
shall see, their methods of mediating damaged, decaying, and ageing Beuys works
demonstrate how collaborative discussions with conservators, curators, and the
artist’s estate engender sensitive decision-making. Significantly, they
also illustrate how responsively negotiating each object’s or
installation’s idiosyncrasies enable Beuys and his work to resonate
continuously within their collections and within culture itself.
One
such work lies dormant within Tate’s Archive in London. Tate purchased
Joseph Beuys’ Felt
Suit 1970 (fig.1), part of a multiple of 100, in 1981. The suit
measures 188 x 76 cm and is made of felt, a material Beuys often manipulated
to invoke a sense of physical, spiritual, and evolutionary warmth.2
As with all Tate acquisitions, the object was meticulously documented
and, notably, flagged as an ‘unusually vulnerable’ item.3
Its vulnerability prompted Tate Conservation to implement written procedures
for appropriate handling, display and storage of the work, as Beuys himself
did not provide Tate with instructions for its care. In fact, when asked
how one should care for Felt Suit, he once announced, ‘I
don’t give a damn. You can nail it to the wall. You can also hang
it on a hanger, ad libitum! But you can also wear it or throw it into
a chest.’4
Interventive treatment of Felt Suit occurred only once, in 1983.
Tate Conservation contacted the artist, requesting a matching piece of felt from
his studio to repair the suit’s trouser
waistband.5 But six years later,
severe damage threw Felt Suit’s status as a viable work of
art into question.
When Tate curatorial staff requested Felt Suit for display in February
1989, conservators uncovered infestation by common clothes moths ‘in all
stages of development’
(fig.2).6
 Fig.2 Joseph Beuys Felt Suit 1970 (photographed after moth damage, 1989) Felt Edition 27, no. 45 Tate Archive. Purchased by Tate 1981, de-accessioned 1995 © DACS 2005 |
 Fig.3 Joseph Beuys Felt Suit 1970 (detail of moth damage) Felt Edition 27, no. 45 Tate Archive. Purchased by Tate 1981, de-accessioned 1995 © DACS 2005 |
Reporting the damage to Tate Director Nicholas Serota, Richard Morphet, the former Head of Collections, informed him that the suit (fig.3),
has been eaten away extensively, with two principal results - the shoulders have largely gone, thus exposing the normally invisible white padding on both sides, and the body of the suit as a whole is copiously penetrated by small holes. The latter are readily visible close-to, though from a middle distance the majority of the surface of the suit gives the appearance of being intact, albeit with a strange change in overall texture.7
Tate’s immediate priority for the work was its conservation. Tate’s then Assistant Keeper, Sean Rainbird, contended that it was crucial to have ‘an accurate conservation assessment’ of the work, even at the expense of its condition entering into the public domain.8 As Beuys had died in 1986, conservators no longer had the option of contacting him for guidance. Tate therefore set about determining viable options for treatment with external textile conservators, and researched examples of other museums’ interventive strategies for Beuys’ felt objects. Upon receiving news of a successful result from fumigation,9 Tate conservators treated Felt Suit with methyl bromide gas, removed the moth detritus, and placed it in a storage container fitted with Vapona strips. They then left it untouched in store, but monitored it in the hope that ‘textile conservators might eventually discover a suitable consolidant for such a severely deteriorated fabric.’10
Despite Felt Suit’s widespread damage, Tate did not consider
the work defunct at this point. Richard Morphet advised Nicholas Serota that he
did not ‘recommend destruction of whatever remains’ and, in fact,
asserted, ‘appalling though the loss of our example is, it is
extraordinarily eloquent in its present state. Eroded and horizontal, it gives a
powerful sense of Beuys’
presence.’11 Derek Pullen,
Head of Sculpture Conservation, confirms that Tate never considered disposal,
relating, ‘there was no discussion ... ever of disposing of it altogether.
I think we just talked about retiring it to the archive, so that at some date in
the future, if someone wanted to do something, then it was still there, and well
looked after up until that
point.’12 Rather than
pronounce Felt Suit dead, Serota, Rainbird, and Pullen began discussing
its possible restoration. However, the unfeasibility of this option quickly
became apparent. Tate’s consultation with external textile conservators
had already revealed that an appropriate consolidant for seriously deteriorated
textiles did not yet exist, and that ‘any consolidant used ... would alter
the original colour, texture and appearance of the
suit’.13 And Beuys’
employment of grey was precise. He declared, ‘With the greyness of felt I
produce an anti-image. I evoke a world which is translucent and clear, maybe
even transcendental, a very colourful
world.’14 By introducing a
consolidating adhesive, the artist’s intentions for the material and its
colour would have been compromised, and the material’s potential for
evocation extinguished.
Two other factors precluded the work’s restoration. First, the
estimated costs for restoring Felt Suit were prohibitively high and, at
that time, greater than the cost of replacement. Second, the necessary work
would have been so invasive that Sean Rainbird concluded, ‘if we did
reconstruct it - because quite a lot of the strapping was still good; it
hadn’t been eaten away - it would be effectively reconstructing the
work.’15 Therefore, Tate
ruled out restoration. Having also excluded disposal as an option, the status of
the suit remained in limbo.
In 1994, however, artist Jana Sterbak forced the issue of Felt
Suit’s status within the collection. Sterbak proposed to Tate the idea
of using the work as part of her installation for the 1996 exhibition Rites
of Passage. The Director tentatively agreed, stating that the artist could
show the suit in its conservation binding in a vitrine. Senior Curator Frances
Morris advised Sterbak of Tate’s conditional approval, but added,
‘in order to make it clear that the suit is damaged and not a work of art,
we will formally de-accession the suit so that it will effectively belong to our
archive.’16 Significantly,
Morris’s statement marks the first recorded instance of de-accessioning
entering Tate discourse surrounding Felt Suit. As we have seen, Tate had
heretofore demonstrated a reluctance to conceive of destroying the work, for
both practical and philosophical reasons. Furthermore, UK law severely limits
public collections from disposing of works, unless, for example, ‘their
condition has deteriorated to such an extent as to render them
“useless”.’17
Whilst the work had suffered serious deterioration both physically and, because
of its inability to invoke the notions of warmth and protection intrinsic to
Beuys’ use of felt, conceptually, its ‘uselessness’ had yet to
be determined. On the contrary, Serota believed that, despite its damage,
Felt Suit could make an ‘extraordinary contribution to
[Sterbak’s] installation and to the exhibition as a
whole.’18
The desire to support Sterbak’s ideas for installation, coupled with
the need to preserve Felt Suit’s integrity, led Serota to consult
with Heiner Bastian, Joseph Beuys’ former secretary. Bastian viewed
photographs of the work and, in a letter to the Director, announced, ‘The
Felt Suit by Joseph Beuys is completely destroyed.’ He went on to
dismiss any possibility of the work’s future exhibition by declaring,
‘The suit was always meant to be a suit in perfect order without any wear
and tear. It is unfortunately a total
loss.’19
Tate now began its move towards formal de-accessioning. Serota contacted Eva
Beuys, the artist’s widow and executor of his estate, and informed her
that the museum had ‘with regret, decided to seek the permission of the
Trustees to deaccession the work.’ He explained, ‘We have taken this
decision because the damage appears to be irrevocable and we are advised that
the work cannot be restored. For these reasons we do not feel we should display
Felt Suit as a work of art within the
collection.’20 In response,
Eva Beuys asserted droit moral over the work, proclaiming:
It is with some difficulty that I state - in the name and from knowledge of Joseph Beuys - that for reasons to do with copyright and individual rights Felt Suit, belonging to the Tate Gallery, must sadly never be shown again in any location, on any occasion and in any context, however constituted, including for the purposes of study
Droit moral, the artist’s moral rights, remain non-transferable
and in effect throughout copyright. As executor of Beuys’ estate, Eva
Beuys controlled the artist’s right to claim paternity over the work,
prevent false attribution of authorship, and object to any distortion,
mutilation, or other derogatory action in relation to the work that would
prejudice the artist’s
reputation.22 Ultimately, she
maintained authority over the exploitation or display of Beuys’ work. Her
statement, coupled with the provision within the 1992 Museums and Galleries Act
allowing disposal of significantly deteriorated works, provided Tate with
substantial legal support for Felt Suit’s de-accession.
According to conservators who witnessed Beuys’ reaction to damaged
works, the artist would have corroborated the decision to de-accession.
Christian Scheidemann recounts:
If ... damage was unavoidable, he would have accepted it. With the felt suit we have to deal with an edition. The edition would carry a mission - and that was to keep the body temperature of the respective person and to keep him spiritually active. The suit was not about the decay ... he was not at all interested in the uncontrolled decay - unless it was unavoidable.23
Hiltrud Schinzel concurs, stating that Beuys upheld standards of
appearance for his works as part of his wider effort to raise public respect for
art.24 In the end, Tate removed
Felt Suit from the collection on 10 February 1995 and placed it in its
Archive. Jana Sterbak received the loan of a Felt Suit from another
collection for her installation. Tate acquired a second suit from the edition in
1998.
Does this mean that we can, at last and with certainty, classify Felt
Suit as dead? Seemingly, as a work of art, the piece is defunct physically
and conceptually. Nevertheless, Tate staff remain disinclined to declare it
altogether dead. Serota has re-affirmed the museum’s intention not to
destroy the work,25 while Richard
Morphet described it as, ‘an accession with a history but no
object,’26 an intriguing
interpretation that assigns it, and removes it from, narrative simultaneously.
Head of Sculpture Conservation Derek Pullen currently regards the work as
‘dormant,’ and counsels, ‘there is still a lot of information
in that piece.’27 Even Eva
Beuys maintains that Tate’s Felt Suit ‘still exists as an
object.’28
It would appear that, although the work is no longer part of Tate’s
collection, its remnants are suspended in conceptual and physical limbo. All
parties agree that this carcass remains a powerful homage to an iconic artist,
and acknowledge that it continues to function, albeit on an ancillary level.
Although classified as an ‘archived object,’ it is stored alongside
the rest of the collection within an insect controlled environment. It is
observed, monitored, and continues to be listed as a ‘Vulnerable
Item’ on the collection database. Like a recently unearthed archaeological
artefact, it retains an essence of its original raison d’être
but no longer functions as intended. Whilst Beuys himself contended that
‘all conservation is a form of self-comforting and self-deception, since
all matter is destined to turn into dust,’ he also averred that,
‘what is indestructible is the spiritual substance’ of the
work.29 That spiritual substance
arguably infuses Tate’s archived Felt Suit.
In
a correlative case, Eugen Blume, the Director of the Hamburger
Bahnhof, argues that Beuys’ own spirit pervades Block Beuys, a
seven-room collection of the artist’s works within the Hessisches
Landesmuseum, Darmstadt. He declares, ‘The creator of this organisation,
which escapes every known order, seems to be present among the objects with his
hands and feelings on and in everything, like a tangible form that wanders
hazily through the rooms.’30
Blume’s invocation of Beuys’ authority and authorship – his
‘hands and feelings’ - certifies the authenticity of Block
Beuys as it stands today. Indeed, the artist repeatedly visited the
Darmstadt Block from its establishment in 1970 until his death in 1986,
recomposing the installations and objects each time. But the Hessisches
Landesmuseum now has grave concerns about the current physical state of Block
Beuys’ environment, prompting the museum to consider its renovation,
and impelling renewed analysis of the constituent elements of both its
authenticity, and its authorship.
Virtually untouched since the artist’s death, Block Beuys’
objects and installations, greyish blue carpets, and jute walls have aged
synchronically (fig.4).
 |
Fig.4 Joseph Beuys Block Beuys (Raum 1) (Room 1) (photographed 15 November 2005) Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Photo: Wolfgang Fuhrmannek © DACS 2005 |
Degraded, they endure as visual reminders of Beuys’ original authorship, as well as his own mortality. The carpet has become grubby and worn. The once bisque-coloured jute has developed into a dark, dull copper, and bears noticeable abrasion and tearing. Yet the Hessisches Landesmuseum contends that rather than indicating the authorial imprint of Beuys, the uncurbed ageing of Block Beuys’ environment provokes many of its visitors to infer neglect.31 Moreover, the overall shabbiness and oppressiveness of the rooms seemingly prevents them from engaging with the installations therein, and with Beuys as an artist more broadly.32 As the entire museum is about to undergo renovation, the museum is considering whether to strip the Block’s original carpets and wall-coverings to reveal the floors and painted walls featured throughout the museum’s other galleries, in the belief that it could refresh not only Block Beuys, but also public reception of the artist himself.
Given the Block’s unaltered composition, however, the
museum’s plans induce questions concerning the rooms’ implicit
authenticity, and the potential ramifications of the proposed renovation. Does
Beuys’ presumed authorship of the rooms extend to its carpets and walls?
Are we to consider the seven rooms within Block Beuys themselves as
installations whose legitimacy depends upon the objects and their environment
remaining intact? Do the museum’s renovation plans therefore constitute a
serious intervention on the part of its caretakers?
Plans for refurbishment,
which include imperative upgrades to the Darmstadt Block’s climate
control system, have existed for many years, but received financial backing only
recently. Beuys himself left no instructions for the Block’s
continued presentation and maintenance, though art journalist David Galloway has
asserted, ‘Repeatedly he had expressed his wish that the components be
seen together and remain
together.’33 One of
Beuys’ photographers, Manfred Leve, concurs:
The individual pieces and their arrangement as stipulated by Beuys are interdependent. The Block Beuys is not a depot for objects but rather a composite. It is not a conglomeration but an arrangement. An examination of the individual parts that does not take context into consideration would be wrong or incomplete and inappropriate to the work.34
The artist has left it to others to surmise from his words and actions how
the Darmstadt Block’s context might be characterised, and whether
its individual parts stretch beyond the objects themselves. These conjectures
shall be explored more fully below. First, though, it is important to assess
what is known about Beuys’ relationship with, and approach towards,
Block Beuys.
The objects came to the Hessisches Landesmuseum from both Beuys himself and collector
Karl Ströher, who in 1967 acquired the majority of Beuys works exhibited at the
Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach, and first refusal of his future output, for DM400,000.
Three years later, Ströher lent his
collection, including the objects comprising Block Beuys, to the museum,
which formally purchased it in 1989, thereby extinguishing the very real
possibility of its relocation to another institution. ‘Nurturing this
project like a private
museum,’35 Beuys oversaw the
appearance and arrangement of the Darmstadt Block from its inception in
1970, whereupon he professed a preference for the white walls distinguishing the
museum galleries.36 And indeed,
Leve’s recently published photographs of Beuys’ 1967 exhibition at
the Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach corroborate his predisposition
for unadorned space, presenting multiple images of objects and installations,
now housed within Block Beuys, conspicuously set against white walls and
bare wooden floors.37
Nevertheless, after discovering that the rooms dedicated to Block Beuys
contained greyish blue carpet and jute-covered walls, the artist accepted and
even collaborated with the given space.
The nature of that collaboration manifests itself most overtly in Raum 1
(Room 1), where Beuys painted a yellow line between three objects, directly onto
the carpet (fig.5) (the artist consciously did not label the exhibits within
Block Beuys).
 |
Fig.5 Joseph Beuys Block Beuys (Raum 1) (Room 1) (detail, photographed 15 November 2005) Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Photo: Wolfgang Fuhrmannek © DACS 2005 |
Although now faded and depleted by the dilapidated carpet, the hand-painted line gives credence to the view that Beuys explicitly authored all aspects of the Darmstadt Block. It both evinces his physical interaction with the room’s environment, and seemingly testifies to its impact upon his arrangement of the objects. Significantly, it also complicates renovation plans for the room. Replacing the carpet with flooring could be seen to compromise the installation’s appearance and authenticity by eliminating vital evidence of Beuys’ ‘hands and feelings.’ Whilst a replica line could be drawn onto parquet or concrete floors, for example, Beuys’ authorship, and thus his authorisation, would be absent from that particular element of the installation. As Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl, the Hessisches Landesmuseum’s Curator of 19th and 20th-century Painting and Sculpture, concedes, ‘I don’t know if Beuys would have made a line on parquet ... you see this line on this carpet, but on the parquet it’s really another thing.’38
Additionally, the resulting physical changes to the room could not avoid
impacting upon the Darmstadt Block conceptually. Visitors stepping onto
the greyish blue carpet confront what Eugen Blume interprets as ‘the
inviolable expanse of the sea. Here the ocean serves as a metaphor for the
fullness and deep mystery of life into which man as a thinking being is
placed.’39 For him, the
Block’s seven rooms encompass ‘a cosmological work around a
three-dimensional energy field in which everything refers to everything else and
every thing speaks to every other
thing.’40 Whilst the museum
would preserve and archive the carpet, and could even reintroduce it into Raum 1
in future, modifying the walls and carpet would unquestionably disrupt this
metaphoric import.
For Blume, Block Beuys’ context clearly extends beyond the
objects alone. But were the ideas he propounds ever intrinsic to Beuys’
composition and conceptualisation of the Darmstadt Block? And does the
declining physical state of the rooms impede those perceptions, and our
experiences, of Block Beuys? Consider the carpets and jute walls today.
The greyish blue carpet, perhaps evocative of the sea, has suffered extensive
and highly noticeable staining and loss, thereby reducing both its potential for
metaphor, and the visual fluency of the installations’ display.
The
jute has darkened substantially, torn, and shows visible
repairs (fig.6). Unlike the ageing objects within the rooms, whose material changes
embody Beuys’ engagement with process, the decayed walls detract and
distract from the carefully conceived installations, arguably blunting the
artist’s presentation, and viewers’ reception of, the Darmstadt
Block.
 |
Fig.6 Joseph Beuys Block Beuys (Raum 2) (Room 2) (photographed 19 July 2005) Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Photo: Rachel Barker © DACS 2005 |
Perhaps because of the carpet’s pervasive damage, the Hessisches Landesmuseum does not regard cleaning to be an option. Its renovation plans could, however, result in honouring Beuys’ initial intentions for the rooms’ appearance by renovating or re-introducing the walls and floors present in its other galleries. For despite his acquiescence in Darmstadt – and there is anecdotal evidence that the artist ‘normally ... accepted the situation in the exhibition rooms [as] they were’41 – Beuys’ intervention in the mounting of his 1979 Guggenheim retrospective revealed that his predilection for unembellished space persisted:
It is the first time the Guggenheim building is okay for art. I removed all fake walls, all ceilings which [sic] worked as a kind of decoration. I removed the blue pool-fountain and repainted it white ... I gave it back a very original, simple, and sober character.’42
It is possible, and even likely that, given the opportunity, Beuys would have
acted comparably in the Darmstadt Block. Yet the notion that traces of
the artist’s, and the rooms’, history now reside within the carpets
and walls convinces some to resist refurbishment plans. Hessisches Landesmuseum
conservator Günter Schott, who assisted Beuys throughout each of his visits
to the Block, concedes that its current environment may be the most
historically authentic, ‘and if it’s new, well, its kind of aura is
gone.’43 But conservation
theorist Salvador Muños Viñas rightly points out that a
work’s ‘successive conditions are all equally authentic, silent
testimonies of its actual
evolution.’44 He insists:
‘The present condition is necessarily authentic, and furthermore, its
present condition is the only actually authentic condition. Any other presumed,
preferred or expected condition exists only in the minds of the subjects, in
their imagination, or in their
memory.’45 He concludes by
admonishing, ‘The belief that the preferred condition of an object is its
authentic condition, that some change performed upon a real object can
actually make it more real, is an important flaw in classical theories of
conservation.’46
Muños Viñas’ discussion reveals the fallacy afflicting
ascriptions of authenticity (and, correlatively, falsity) to an object,
installation, or environment’s state. Following his conclusions, and in
the absence of documented counsel from the artist, we would argue that the
belief that rejecting change will render Block Beuys more real,
and safeguard an assumed legitimacy, equally perpetuates a fiction at the core
of classical theories of conservation.
By consistently re-visiting, re-composing, and thus re-authorising the
Darmstadt Block, Joseph Beuys designated each of its successive states
‘authentic.’ He reinterpreted the Block with every visit,
thereby emphasising its capacity for flux. ‘My sculpture is not fixed and
finished. Processes continue in most of them: chemical reactions, fermentations,
color changes, decay, drying up. Everything is in a state of
change,’ he once famously
announced.47 Notably, Günter
Schott confirms that the artist would not have precluded intercession if
material changes to an installation or object occluded its formative ideas:
‘It’s always the principal question, whether to preserve the idea or
the material. But if Beuys were alive, he would intervene, perhaps, to preserve
the idea.’48
For the Hessisches Landesmuseum, the level of deterioration possibly
obstructs a significant amount of the concepts or readings that can be realised
within Block Beuys. Visitors sometimes complain of neglect, and curator
Klaus-Dieter Pohl offers compelling evidence that the decrepitude prevents their
engagement with the artist and his work. He relates:
We are remarking that the reception of the Block Beuys ... is lessening ... especially in the younger generation. I have many guided tours here with students ... and, some months ago, I had a tour with some ... art students. ... At the end, I asked them, ‘Now what do you think?’ And one girl said, ‘It’s only ugly. It’s only ugly.’ That was a big shock for me; I thought it over, because the first point is, they find it ugly, but they don’t make the step to go beyond this ugliness and to reflect, ‘Why is it ugly? What does it mean, ugly?’ ... They don’t reflect, but it was a feeling ... . And Beuys is not ugly; the forms aren’t ugly, so I thought, perhaps it’s really this whole situation [that] seems more drückend, more depressing.49
As the museum deems Block Beuys’ fundamental components to
consist of its objects, vitrines, and installations only (a view it avers
the artist shared), it submits that, rather than compromise the integrity of the
Block, renovation and reinstallation could refresh, and make relevant
again, artist and work alike.50
Schott, perhaps the Hessisches Landesmuseum’s most circumspect Beuys
authority to participate in the renovation discussions, agrees. His contention
that reinstallation will reinvigorate public engagement with the work provides a
potent reminder of that notion’s centrality to Beuys’ practice and
philosophy, and so to evaluations of Block Beuys’ continued
integrity:
Beuys had installed these objects in his vitrines paying attention to the proportion of the rooms. That’s clear. And we don’t know what he would have done perhaps with white walls. But I think the most important thing is the proportion, not the colour of the walls. We don’t know in the end. But if we make it fresh and white, we are sure that this will be a new reception. A new reception will begin, and perhaps [be] more positive, or negative, that depends. For Beuys, it was worth more to have a negative discussion than no discussion.51
It is in this spirit of candid yet informed debate that the museum has
undertaken collaborative consultations with Beuys’ curators, colleagues,
and estate in order to achieve sensitive and consensual resolution over the
condition of Block Beuys. It exhibits an acute awareness of the complex
conservation and philosophical issues attending renovation, as well as the
potential rewards for Joseph Beuys and Block Beuys’ public
reception. The Beuys Estate has confirmed that it was never the artist’s
opinion that Block Beuys, in its entirety, was
untouchable.52 Moreover, the
museum has received backing from eminent Beuys colleagues such as Götz
Adriani, the Hessisches Landesmuseum curator during Block Beuys’
installation. The museum recognises that either outcome – preservation or
renovation – could estrange a sector of Beuys associates. What each sector
must contemplate is whether that outcome will bring current and future audiences
any closer to Beuys, his practice, and the Darmstadt Block.
The
Hessisches Landesmuseum’s confrontation with the particular philosophical
and practical challenges that Beuys’ ageing works provoke are mirrored
at Tate, who in 1984 acquired the artist’s 1963 work, Fat
Battery (fig.7).
 |
Fig.7 Joseph Beuys Individual elements from Fat Battery 1963 Photograph taken in 1963, reproduced in Joseph Beuys, exhibition catalogue, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979 © DACS 2005 |
A hugely important work within the development of his examination of the meaning and purpose of sculpture, Fat Battery has undergone significant changes, calling into question its ability to communicate its conceptual, physical and aesthetic function.
Fat Battery
comprises a cardboard box supported by an underlying,
hidden Formica tray (fig.8).
 |
Fig.8 Joseph Beuys Fat Battery 1963 (current appearance) Felt, fat, tin, wood and board Tate. Presented by E.J. Power through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1984 © DACS 2005 View in Tate Collection |
 |
Fig.9. Joseph Beuys Fat Battery 1963 (photographed in 1968 prior to acquisition by Tate) Felt, fat, tin, wood and board Tate. Presented by E.J. Power through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1984 © DACS 2005 |
Inside the box, on the right, is an opened corned beef tin resting on its upturned lid, which Beuys himself repositioned after it had snapped off. The tin contains fat, specifically coconut oil margarine,53 now bleached white by ageing, and which, notably, has spilt over the edges of its container, saturating the surrounding cardboard (fig.9). Several sheets of felt interlaid with fat and placed on a round piece of metal lie in the middle of the box, whilst the left-hand side displays two metal casings that show marked corrosion on the outside. Each casing contains fat, and is linked with a strip of felt. All of the units within the cardboard box work in harmony to imply both a battery’s ability to harbour an electrical charge, and the generation of energy.
Beuys often engaged with electricity in his work, either using actual
electricity, or suggesting its presence by wielding electrolytic or
electrostatic processes, thus generating energy through the meeting of certain
materials. He believed that the production of coldness and warmth, or polarities
of energy, related to the human intellect, claiming, ‘you always have to
think in terms of polarities, or forces, which are nothing other than awareness,
presence of mind.’54
Furthermore, concepts of coldness and warmth were central to his Theory of
Sculpture, which explicates changes of physical matter from a chaotic to an
ordered state. For Beuys, material in its raw state is ‘chaotic’ and
warm, whereas raw material that has undergone processing is
‘ordered’ and cold.55
Fat Battery’s fat content embodies Beuys’ theory through its
ability to exist in both chaotic (when warm) and ordered (when cold) states.
Beuys’
reasons for utilising all of the materials in this sculpture are
well documented. Fat, felt, and metal are materials now considered to be
synonymous with Beuys’ sculpture. Each of these materials can insulate,
produce or conduct energy, essential factors for an object representing a
battery. Each sculptural unit - the felt and fat unit; the metal casings, fat and felt
unit; and the tin and fat unit - individually and collectively denote the
charge, discharge and recharge of energy.
However, a comparison between
photographs of the object soon after completion, and its current appearance,
discloses obvious and remarkable changes to Fat Battery, warranting an
inquiry as to whether the sculpture continues to function as the artist
intended. Whilst all of the materials used for this sculpture exhibit marked
alterations, the most striking occur in the fat, felt, and cardboard box. The
fat has liquefied and infiltrated the surrounding absorbent materials - the felt
and cardboard box container - causing them to change colour and texture. The
cardboard box is now quite soggy, and presents the threat of collapse. That
threat has impelled Tate to review strategies for retaining the work’s
conceptual and physical integrity.
Ironically, Joseph Beuys’
manipulation of organic and time-based materials both intrigued and alienated
Tate in the 1970s, when it first contemplated acquiring Fat Battery. The
history of its acquisition uncovers the museum’s awareness of the
conservation and curatorial issues it has come to rouse. Fat Battery
derived from a series of small units of work relating to Fluxus-type experiments
that Beuys united in 1963, forming the sculpture as a whole. He retained it
until 1967, when the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp obtained
it.56 Over the following years,
Beuys’ international reputation grew, and most major European galleries
boasted significant holdings of his work. Whilst Tate had begun collecting work
by Beuys, by the early 1970s this amounted only to a bronze object entitled
Bed 1950. In order to represent his work more comprehensively, Tate
curators and Beuys scholars believed that it was necessary to acquire works
incorporating his signature materials of fat, felt and wax. This led Ronald
Alley, the then-Keeper of the Modern Collection, to inquire of Beuys’
Düsseldorf gallery, ‘What chances are there of obtaining one or more
of his works made up or [sic] unusual materials like felt and
wax?’57 He reiterated this
desire upon Tate’s purchase of Bed in 1972, stating:
We should like, when the opportunity arises, to buy further works of a different period and type, especially ones incorporating unusual materials like felt and wax. I realise that it is not easy to obtain works by Beuys of this type, but we should be grateful if you would let us know when you get some.58
Two years passed before the prospect of such a purchase materialised. In an
April 1974 letter to Anny De Decker of the Wide White Space Gallery,
then-Assistant Keeper Anne Seymour noted that Fat Battery (together with
Das Erdtelephon, 1968) had been offered for sale six months
earlier, and asked, ‘Are they still by any chance available? (Perhaps it
is too much to hope for). We have at last come to the point where we are
reconsidering our Beuys representation in earnest and would like to express our
firm interest.’59 De Decker
responded affirmatively and, presaging Beuys’ eventual placement of the
work within a vitrine, proposed, ‘perhaps you could arrange yourself a
case for the museum with different
objects.’60
De Decker sent Fat Battery and Das Erdtelephon to Tate in June
1974 for the Board of Trustees to consider for purchase. Upon their receipt,
Seymour declared, ‘they are both fine pieces and we are especially
thrilled with the
Fettbatterie.’61 But
prior to the Board’s meeting to discuss Fat Battery, Tate Director
Norman Reid warned the Trustees’ Chairman:
This piece has already changed considerably since it was made. My staff assure me that the artist says the changes do not matter or are even intrinsic to the work. I do not recommend spending £4,500 on a work which is almost impossible to conserve.62
In response, Beuys scholar Caroline Tisdall countered, ‘The idea of
looking for ‘non-perishable’ works sounds sensible on the face of
it, but in the case of Beuys it is rather complicated. As you know he has been
using fat, felt, batteries etc, since the beginning of the Sixties, and these
are the works that are in the European
museums.’63 Nevertheless,
the Board rejected Fat Battery, Das Erdtelephon, and another work,
Eurasia (1966), on the basis of their impermanent materials. Richard Morphet
advised De Decker that the Trustees ‘decided, instead, to seek to acquire
works by Beuys, including drawings, which are less perishable than they
considered these ... works to
be.’64 However, recognising
the profound representational and referential importance of Fat Battery
to Beuys’ 1962-4 Fluxus activity, the then-Chairman of Trustees, Ted
Power, purchased the work himself, and offered it to Tate as a long-term
loan.65
Within
the next ten years, Tate’s holdings of Beuys’ work grew appreciably.
In 1980, Sir Alan Bowness succeeded Sir Norman Reid, who had opposed Fat
Battery’s purchase, as Director. Bowness was committed to developing
Tate’s collection of Beuys’ works. Consequently, Tate acquired
two vitrines in early 1984, in order to represent the artist’s most
current work. Earlier in the same year, Beuys met with Bowness in Stuttgart,
and suggested placing Tate’s collection of his work together in
a display vitrine.66 His initial
proposal to enclose Fat Battery, Felt Suit, Bed,
and Tate’s collection of Beuys Blackboards
from a 1972 lecture proved unworkable, so the artist agreed to
come to London and install a vitrine using appropriate Tate pieces and
recently made works from his own studio. In July 1984, Beuys placed Bed
1950, Fat Battery, and two new works - Bathtub
for a Heroine 1950, recast in 1984, and Animal Woman 1949,
recast in 1984 - in the third vitrine. He generously gifted these two
works to Tate, spurring Ted Powers to emulate Beuys’s generosity
and bequest Fat Battery to Tate as well. He declared, ‘The
piece has been with the Tate since I bought it and I don’t want
to break the “heart” of a vitrine by removing its “pacer
battery,” so I have decided to offer it to the Tate now.’67
Displayed as an independent object from 1974 to 1984, it has since been
shown only as part of a vitrine, and re-titled Untitled 1984.
Tate believes that Beuys’ placement of the object within the vitrine
rendered it permanently reinterpreted, and they wish to preserve it as
such.
When Beuys visited Tate in 1984 and witnessed the effects of twenty years of
ageing upon Fat Battery, he was pleased to note the small changes that
had taken place. The fat had changed form, appeared to be more liquid, had
bleached in colour, and had flowed from its original position within the metal
container, saturating the cardboard outer container. It was also odorous,
cracked, and had absorbed dirt from the environment. Despite these changes,
Beuys exclaimed, ‘The fat should last as long as the Pharaohs,’ and
remarked approvingly that Fat Battery now smelt exactly like an old
battery.68
In order to assess whether the sculpture continues to function and behave as
Beuys wished, it is useful to examine its materials, the degree of change, and
whether Tate Conservation can accommodate those changes so that the intrinsic
concept for this work is maintained. The most powerful alteration to the work
occurs in the fat. Beuys first manipulated fat as a sculpting material in July
1963 for an action at the Rudolf Zwirner Gallery, Cologne, the same year he
created Fat Battery. He explained, ‘My initial intention in using
fat was to stimulate discussion. The flexibility of the material appealed to me
particularly in its reaction to temperature changes. This flexibility is
psychologically effective - people instinctively feel it relates to inner
processes and feelings.’69
In addition to its material and representational properties, fat carried
biographical significance for Beuys: his parents had wanted him to take a steady
job at the local margarine factory in his hometown of
Cleves.70 The reasons why Beuys
chose coconut margarine for Fat Battery, other than for its physical and
visual properties, are speculative. He stated only, ‘There’s nothing
more banal than margarine; that shocks
people.’71
The margarine so prevalent within the sculpture is primarily 80% fat and 20%
aqueous materials, such as water or skimmed milk, within which are suspended
additives such as colorants and preservatives. The fat element or glycerides in
coconut margarine are mainly medium chain length saturated fatty acids such as
lauric (50%), capric (6-7%) and myristic acids.
During manufacture, part of
the fat element crystallises. The fat crystals form a 3-D structure that houses
the liquid oil, the aqueous material and additives. The amount of crystallised
fat influences how paste-like the margarine is. Coconut margarine maintains a
fairly solid and paste-like consistency as long as it is kept below 20 degrees
centigrade. Agents causing deterioration of fat include heat, damp, bacteria and
contact with some metals. The fat will harden and become odorous.
As
Beuys’ visit to Tate in 1984 disclosed, the artist fully sanctioned the
changes occurring within the fat. Even in its altered state, it manages to
convey the ability to be both chaotic and static in nature, and its capacity for
insulating and storing energy. Thus, the fat still resonates with Beuys’
original concept.
The
artist apparently intended the fat’s infiltration
into the surrounding materials, such as the felt and cardboard box. For him,
this process was crucial to the ‘performance’ of the work. The
infiltration further supported the chaotic potential of energy within the fat,
and its ability to insulate the saturated material. To counter the chaos, the
cardboard box ultimately controls, or brings order to, the action.
Fat
Battery’s container box is composed of cardboard, a paper product that
will become increasingly acidic, dark, and brittle, eventually losing its
strength and collapsing. However, somewhat fortuitously, the cardboard box in
this sculpture is being preserved by the infiltration of the margarine, sealing
the structure of the card, and protecting it from harmful environmental forces
of degradation.
Within
the box lies one of its key sculptural units: two
metal casings filled with fat and linked by a piece of felt.
In a clean controlled environment, most metals will develop only a superficial
tarnish but the acid components of some natural oils are corrosive.
Fat Battery’s metal components have corroded noticeably since 1963,
when photographs taken of the work revealed a much less tarnished surface. Their
contact with the coconut margarine may, in part, have contributed to their
corrosion. The green residue visible on the surface also
suggests exposure to atmospheric pollutants. However, as metal is recognised as a
good conductor of electricity, the casings continue to act as an
appropriate vehicle for the expression of energy.
Felt features within a
number of Fat Battery’s sculptural units. Felt is a fabric
made of matted fibres, most usually wool, hair or fur, bonded together through
the action of heat, moisture, chemicals and pressure. As Tate’s experience
with Felt Suit proved, it is prone to insect infestation, particularly
clothes and webbing moths, and easily traps dirt particles within its matted
structure. Early photographs reveal that the felt in Fat Battery once
boasted a fresh, aerated texture. Now, it is flattened and compressed due to the
infiltration of fat, although this action appears to be complete, and the felt
fully saturated. Importantly, the infiltration of fat was not unexpected, and
may even have been necessary to the ‘performance’ of this work.
Fat Battery forms a collection of sculptural units connected and
interrelated through their implicit ability to harbour energy. The conceptual
interdependency of each sculptural unit depends upon their aesthetic and
physical qualities remaining intact. Does the completion of an action such as
saturation, or perhaps the conceptual or physical demise of one unit, thus have
ramifications for the conceptual well-being of the whole? If so, the notion of
replacing exhausted sculptural units of the Battery may be appropriate. Beuys
was familiar with the issues of longevity in his work, as he illustrated with
Capri Battery, 1985, a lemon attached to an electrical charger. He provided
the sculpture with a set of instructions that advised, ‘Change battery
every 1000 hours,’ thereby wittily signalling his awareness that organic
materials are ultimately a limited resource. Similarly, Block Beuys
conservator Günter Schott recalls that Beuys, referring to Site
1967, a felt and copper installation housed in Raum 2, advised him that, if
necessary, ‘You can renovate the felt to keep the
idea.’72
Significantly, however, Beuys was also known to display extreme
protectiveness over the physical state of his works, insisting that change might
be inappropriate. He famously sprayed the blackboard elements of works such as
Eurasia 1966 with fixative in order to fix the surfaces and prevent
damage and change.73 Given
Beuys’ inconsistent stance regarding preventive treatment, Tate has
reviewed Fat Battery. Its conservators and curators conclude that it
still functions satisfactorily on a conceptual and physical level. However, the
museum is aware that there will ultimately come a time when replacement of parts
or the whole of this sculpture will need to be addressed. The imperative to
discuss notions of replacement, reproduction, and renovation of Beuys’
work is crucial for its future care.
Tate is conscious of the need to ensure the appropriate preservation of this
work in relation to how it interprets Beuys’ wishes, noting the outcry
that ensued when institutions have taken the initiative to replicate, or
reconstitute, parts of Beuys’ works when they ceased to function as
intended. In 1977, for example, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum authorised
the ‘reconstitution’ of one of their Beuys works, Fettecke in
Kartonschachtel (1963), after the gallery lighting melted the fat. The
‘fat’ was replaced with a less perishable concoction of 80% stearin,
17% linseed oil and 3% beeswax. Beuys was not consulted concerning this action,
and the museum has received criticism from, amongst others, one of its present
conservators: ‘In my opinion, what was done in 1977 was both too drastic
and unnecessary. Looking at the records of the restoration and the
pre-restoration photographs, I much prefer the damaged Corner of Fat to
the present situation.’74
A similar approach to Fat Battery is unlikely. Tate values the
original materials within this work, which it believes authenticate it despite,
or even - given the primacy of energy to Beuys’ conception of this work -
because of, its physical deterioration. The museum is committed to slowing down
deterioration without physical intervention, and keeps the work in ambient
museum conditions. Conservators regularly inspect the sculpture both on and off
display, and restrict its movement, loaning it out only under exceptional
circumstances. Much care is taken to maintain a clean environment within the
display vitrine.
Through heedful and consensual curatorial and
conservation practices, Tate and the Hessisches Landesmuseum are striving to
demonstrate how Beuys’ work of the past forty years remains pertinent and
dynamic today. Fluxus-related objects like Fat Battery interrogate the
nature of art, oppose the idea of the uselessness of the art object, and reject
the notion that art is a medium for an artist’s ego. These aims motivated
Beuys throughout his career, and inspire much of contemporary art production
today. To conserve those ideas, the form of Beuys’ works must survive
physically and conceptually. Without the material form, we lose the idea. For
Beuys, the two were indivisible. As Caroline Tisdall lamented, ‘It is a
tragedy of Beuys’s work that the form gets divorced from the ideas. One
bit gets left behind since no one can own the ideas. As they are transitory they
risk being forgotten.’75 The
cultural significance and contemporaneity of Beuys’ ideas prolong his
legacy; it is our responsibility to ensure that the material objects support
that legacy.
Notes
1.
Email from Hiltrud Schinzel, 24 October 2004.
2.
Jörg Schellmann and Bernd
Klüser, Joseph Beuys: Multiples, 5th edition, Munich 1980, n.p.
3.
Pete Booth, Conservation
Structure and Condition Report, not dated, Tate Sculpture Conservation.
4.
Schellmann and Klüser 1980, n.p.
5.
Sheila Fairbrass, letter to Richard Morphet, 11 January 1983, Tate Archive.
6.
Don Sale, Tate Gallery
Conservation Department Record of Examination, 15 February 1989, Tate Sculpture Conservation.
7.
Richard Morphet, letter to
Nicholas Serota, 17 February 1989, Tate Archive.
8.
Jackie Heuman, Internal
Memorandum to Alexander Dunluce and Sean Rainbird, 4 October 1989, Tate Archive.
Richard Morphet and Nicholas Serota write additional comments on the memo
concurring with Rainbird’s advice.
9.
Sean Rainbird, letter
to Roy Perry, 21 February 1989, Tate Archive. Rainbird relates the
Staatsgalerie’s (Stuttgart) similar problems with Beuys’ Plastic
Elastic Foot and, in a subsequent memorandum, reports the
Staatsgalerie’s successful fumigation of the work. Sean Rainbird,
Memorandum to Richard Morphet, 29 March 1989, Tate Archive.
10.
Jackie Heuman,
Memorandum to Alexander Dunluce, 1 November 1989, Tate Archive.
11.
Richard Morphet, letter to
Nicholas Serota, 17 February 1989, Tate Archive.
12.
Derek Pullen,
interview with authors, 11 October 2004.
13.
Jackie Heuman,
Internal Memorandum to Alexander Dunluce and Sean Rainbird, 4 October 1989, Tate Archive.
14.
Caroline Tisdall,
Bits and Pieces: A Collection of Work by Joseph Beuys from 1957 to 1985
Assembled by him for Caroline Tisdall, Edinburgh 1987, p.39.
15.
Sean Rainbird, interview
with Rachel Barker, 13 September 2004.
16 Francis Morris, letter to
Jana Sterbak, 18 January 1994, Tate Archive.
17.
National Museum
Directors’ Conference, Too Much Stuff: Disposal from Museums,
London 2003, p.17. See National Heritage Act, 1983, Section 6 (3) (b), and the
amended Museum and Galleries Act, 1992, which covers Tate.
18.
Nicholas Serota,
letter to Heiner Bastian, 17 November 1994, Tate Archive.
19.
Heiner Bastian, letter to
Nicholas Serota, 6 December 1994, Tate Archive.
20.
Nicholas Serota, letter to
Eva Beuys, 31 January 1995, Tate Archive.
21.
Eva Beuys, letter to
Nicholas Serota (trans. from German), 9 February 1995, Tate Archive.
22.
Berne Convention
for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September 1886, art.
6bis, S. Treaty Doc. No. 27, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 4, 1986.
23.
Christian Scheidemann, email
to Alison Bracker, 31 October 2004.
24.
Dr. Hiltrud Schinzel, email
to Alison Bracker, 24 October 2004.
25.
Nicholas Serota, letter to
Eva Beuys, 11 May 1995, Tate Archive.
26.
Richard Morphet,
letter to Senior Curators, 19 May 1995, Tate Archive.
27.
Derek Pullen,
interview with authors, 11 October 2004.
28.
Eva Beuys, letter to
Nicholas Serota, 9 February 1995.
29.
Christian Scheidemann,
unpublished interview with Franz Joseph Van der Grinten, 1993, email to Alison
Bracker, 31 October 2004.
30.
Eugen Blume,
‘Conversations on the Beach Too Long’, Eugen Blume and Manfred Leve,
Leve Sieht Beuys, Göttingen 2004, p.14.
31.
Interview with Dr. Dr.
Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
32.
Ibid.
33.
David Galloway, ‘Beuys
and Warhol: Aftershocks,’ Art in America, July 1988, p.114.
34.
Blume and Leve 2004, p.16.
35.
Galloway 1988, p.114.
36.
Interview with Dr.
Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
37.
Blume and Leve 2004, p.20-30.
38.
Interview with Dr. Dr.
Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
39.
Blume and Leve 2004, p.13.
40.
Ibid., p.14.
41.
Interview with Dr. Dr.
Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
42.
‘Joseph Beuys Talks to Louwrien Wijers,’ Velp 1980, p.4.
43.
Interview with Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
44.
Salvador Muñoz
Viñas, Contemporary Theory of Conservation, Oxford 2005, p.94.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Ibid., p.95.
47.
In Memoriam Joseph Beuys:
Obituaries, Essays, Speeches, trans. Timothy Nevill, Bonn 1986, p.22.
48.
Interview with Dr. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
49.
Ibid.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Ibid.
52.
Dr. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl,
email to Rachel Barker, 24 October 2005.
53 .
Richard Morphet, Memorandum,
Tate Archive File TG 4/2/87/2, unnumbered entry, c. August 1974.
54.
Joseph Beuys and Volker
Harlan, eds., What Is Art?: Conversations with Joseph Beuys, trans.
Matthew Barton and Shelley Sacks, Forest Row 2004, p.50.
55.
For a larger
discussion of Beuys’ theory of sculpture, see Caroline Tisdall, Joseph
Beuys, London 1979, p.72.
56.
Anny De Decker, letter to
Sean Rainbird, 30 June 1988, Tate Collection catalogue file.
57.
Ronald Alley, letter
to Alfred Schmela, 10 May 1972, Tate Collection catalogue file.
58.
Ronald Alley, letter to
Alfred Schmela, 19 May 1972, Tate Collection catalogue file.
59.
Anne Seymore, letter to Anny
De Decker, 23 April 1974, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.48, Tate Archive.
60.
Anny De Decker,
letter to Anne Seymore, undated, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.137, Tate Archive.
61.
Anne Seymour, letter to Anny
De Decker, 18 June 1974, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.71, Tate Archive.
62.
Norman Reid, ‘Note for
the Chairman by the Director,’ 12 July 1974, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.105,
Tate Archive.
63.
Caroline Tisdall, letter to
Norman Reid, undated, file TG 4/2/87/2, Tate Archive.
64.
Richard Morphet,
letter to Anny De Decker, 24 July 1974, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.112, Tate Archive.
65.
Anne Seymour, note
to Norman Reid, 3 September 1974, file TG 4/2/87/2, no.125, Tate Archive.
66.
Alan Bowness, letter to
Joseph Beuys, 21 June 1984, Tate Collection catalogue file.
67.
E.J. Power, letter to Alan
Bowness, 8 August 1984, file TG 4/2/87/2, Tate Archive.
68.
Richard Morphet, undated
note, Tate Collection catalogue file.
69.
Tisdall 1979, p.72.
70.
Gene Ray, ed.,
Joseph Beuys: Mapping the Legacy, Sarasota 2001, p.196.
71.
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger,
‘Interview with Joseph Beuys’, 1968.
72.
Interview with Dr. Dr.
Klaus-Dieter Pohl and Günter Schott, 19 July 2005.
73.
Richard Morphet, undated
note, file TG 4/2/87/2, Tate Archive, London.
74.
Kees Herman Aben,
‘Conservation of Modern Sculpture at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam’,
Jackie Heuman ed., From Marble to Chocolate: The Conservation of Modern
Sculpture, London 1995, p.109.
75.
‘Caroline Tisdall in
Conversation with Sean Rainbird,’ in Sean Rainbird, Joseph Beuys and
the Celtic World: Scotland, Ireland, England 1970-85, London 2005, p.83.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the following for their help and support: Eva Beuys, Dr. Klaus-Dieter Pohl, Derek Pullen, Sean Rainbird, Günter Schott, and the RCA Research Development Fund.
Rachel Barker is a Conservator of Modern and Contemporary Paintings at Tate.
Dr. Alison Bracker is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Bracker Fiske Consultants.
Tate Papers Autumn 2005 © Rachel Barker and Alison Bracker
back to top
