Joseph Beuys

Model for a Felt Environment

1964

Not on display

Artist: Joseph Beuys 1921–1986
Original title: Entwurf fur ein Filzenvironment
Medium: Wood, glass, felt, oil paint and lead
Dimensions: Displayed: 1840 × 1680 × 840 mm
object (vitrine): 1840 × 1680 × 840 mm
object (felt object): 630 × 700 × 220 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00619

Online caption

The neat rolls of grey felt on painted wood inside this vitrine are intended as a model for an 'environment'. Felt insulates and absorbs, representing protection but also a sense of constriction, like being suffocated. The same type of felt rolls are seen in the 'environment' 'Plight' (1958/1985), now in the Pompidou Centre, in which the walls and ceiling are covered with felt to create a stifling atmosphere. Beuys used felt in an infamous 'action' performed the same year this model was made. 'The Chief' saw the artist being wrapped in a felt blanket, fighting claustrophobia to lie practically still, as if in a coffin, for a nine-hour period.