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Joseph Beuys  1921-1986

Joseph Beuys Felt Suit 1970
© DACS, 2009
Felt Suit  1970
Filzanzug

Felt
unconfirmed: 1700 x 600 mm
sculpture

Purchased 1998

T07441

Felt Suit was tailored from one of Beuys’s own suits, and can be seen as an oblique self-portrait. Although it was intended as a work to be hung from the gallery wall, he did wear one of the suits in a performance in the early 1970s. For Beuys, the suit was an extension of his felt sculptures, in which the felt appeared as ‘an element of warmth’. He explained: ‘Not even physical warmth is meant... Actually I meant a completely different kind of warmth, namely spiritual or evolutionary warmth or the beginning of an evolution’.

 (From the display caption July 2008)