The Son’s Coming Home: Narrative Economies of Joseph Beuys’ Art
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.20180815Keywords:
art museums, private collectors, retrospective exhibitions, curating, Hamburger Bahnhof, Joseph Beuys, narrative economyAbstract
This article deals with the narration of Joseph Beuys’ art in Germany. My focus is set on the ways that particular curatorial strategies have been applied to Beuys’ artistic practice in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. I contextualize the readings in the interests of different stakeholders involved in the rescaling of the artist’s heritage. Beuys’ framing in the two recent retrospective exhibitions in Berlin and Düsseldorf and the regular display of his works in the Hamburger Bahnhof leads me to argue that private collectors have become closely involved in the process of curating in novel ways, which in turn requires a new critical reading of exhibition practices. Narrative economy is a concept proposed for understanding these interests and their articulations in exhibition curation.
References
Ackermann, Marion & Isabelle Malz (2010): “Foreword”, Ackermann, Marion & Isabelle Malz (eds), Joseph Beuys: Parallel Processes, Düsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 8–10.
Bal, Mieke (1998): Double Exposures: The Subject of Cultural Analysis. 1st Edition. London, New York: Routledge.
Bennett, Tony (1995): The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London, New York: Routledge.
Blume, Eugen (2007a): “Joseph Beuys Medien-Archiv im Hamburger Bahnhof”, Museum für Gegenwart. Freistätte für Kunst und Wissenschaft. Die Staatliche Museen zu Berlin als Forschungseinrichtung, Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 134–39.
Blume, Eugen (2007b): “Joseph Beuys and the GDR”, Claudia Mesch & Viola Michely (eds): Joseph Beuys: The Reader, London & New York, IB Tauris, 313–14.
Blume, Eugen (2008): “Beuys. Die Revolution sind wir”, Museumsjournal, 40: http://www.smb.museum/smb/presse/details.php?objID=21204&lang=de&typeId-=34&n=2, (accessed 24/04/2014).
Blume, Eugen (2009): “Der Tod Hält Mich Wach”, Eugen Blume & Cathrine Nichols (eds): Joseph Beuys: Die Revolution sind wir, Berlin: Hamburger Bahnhof, 18-21.
Boehm, Gottfried (2011): “Everything is Sculpture. Joseph Beuys and the Plastic Image Impulses and Motivations”, Marion Ackermann & Isabelle Malz (eds): Joseph Beuys: Parallel Processes, Düsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 322–35.
Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. (1980): “Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol. Preliminary notes for a critique”, Artforum, 18:5, 35–43.
Duncan, Carol (1996): Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, New York: Routledge.
Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss & Yves-Alain Bois, et al. (2011): Art Since 1900: Modernism, Anti-modernism, Postmodernism, London: Thames & Hudson, 524–529.
Gallwitz, Klaus (1976): “Editorial”, Biennale 76 Venedig. Deutcher Pavillion. Ruthenbeck, Berlin: Kommissar der Bundesrepublik Deutchland, 4–6.
Gieseke, Frank & Albert Markert (1996): Flieger, Filz und Vaterland. Eine erweiterte Beuys Biografie, Berlin: Espresso Verlag.
Haenlein, Carl (1990): “Interview mit Beuys”, Carl Hellein (ed): Joseph Beuys. Eine Innere Mongolei, Hannover: Kestner Gesellsaft, 203–4.
Honisch, Dieter (1994): “Neue Nationalgalerie und Hamburger Bahnhof”, Standorte und Standpunkte, Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 43–48.
Honisch, Dieter (2001): “Ein Museum im Museum – Die Sammlung Marx in der Nationalgalerie”, Eine Sammlung für Nationalgalerie. Festschrift Erich Marx, München & Schirmer/ Mosel, 12:14.
Hoskins, Gareth (2010): “A Secret Reservoir of Values: The Narrative Economy of Angel Island Immigration Station”, Cultural Geographies, 17:2, 259–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474010363850
Huyssen, Andreas (2003): Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Jappe, Georg (2001): “Interview with Beuys about Key Experiences. September 27, 1976”, Gene Ray (ed): Joseph Beuys: Mapping the Legacy, New York: D.A.P., John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 185–99.
Joseph Beuys Ausstellung Pressegerichte, Martin Gropius Bau, 1988. Archive of the Berlin State Museum.
Marx, Erich (1997a): ‘Vorwort’, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauchenberg, Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer. Aus der Sammlung Marx, Baden-Baden: Museum Frieder Burda, 7–11.
Marx, Erich (1997b): “Im Dialogue mit dieser Zeit”, Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Band XXXIII, Berlin: Mann Verlag, 24–25.
Nichols, Cathrine (2008): “Mich interessiert Transformation”, Eugen Blume & Cathrine Nichols (eds): Joseph Beuys: Die Revolution sind wir, Berlin: Hamburger Bahnhof, 32–35.
Riegel, Hans Peter (2013). Beuys: Die Biographie. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag.
Scholten, Simone, Roland Mönig et al. (2000): Joseph Beuys: ‘Strassenbahnhaltestelle’, ein Monument für die Zukunft, Kleve: Museum Kurhaus Kleve.
Schuster, Peter-Klaus (2009): ‘Dürer und Beuys. Die Revolution sind wir’, Eugen Blume and Cathrine Nichols (eds): Joseph Beuys: Die Revolution sind wir, Berlin: Hamburger Bahnhof, 325–26.
Sello, Gottfried (1976): ‘Das Mirakel von Venedig’, 23 July 1976, Die Zeit, http://www.zeit.de/1976/31/das-mirakel-von-venedig, (accessed 25/03/2016).
Verdery, Kathrine (1999): The Political Lives of Dead Bodies. Reburial and postsocialist change, New York: Columbia University Press.
Weiss, Christina, Peter-Claus Schuster & Eugen Blume (2008): ‘Foreword’, Eugen Blume & Cathrine Nichols (eds): Joseph Beuys: Die Revolution sind wir, Berlin: Hamburger Bahnhof, 6–7. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47w6md.3
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Margaret Tali
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright for all manuscripts rests with the author(s). The editors reserve the right to edit manuscripts. Contributors are responsible for acquiring all permissions from the copyright owners for the use of quotations, illustrations, tables, etc. Each author must, before final publication fill, in a publishing agreement provided by LiU E-Press.
Since 2021 Culture Unbound uses a Creative Commons: Attribution license for new articles, which allows users to distribute the work and to reform or build upon it without the author's permission. Full reference to the author must be given. For older articles please see each article landing page.