Joseph Beuys, 40 Years of Drawing (Installation View), via Art Observed
This month in London, Thaddaeus Ropac has embarked on a particularly striking and powerful exhibition, bringing together almost 100 works on paper from the archives of the Joseph Beuys family for the first time in the United Kingdom. On view now, Joseph Beuys: 40 Years of Drawing is the first major exhibition dedicated solely to the artist’s drawings to take place in London for 20 years, and offers a cohesive and engaging look at the role drawing played in the artist’s work over the course of his career.
Joseph Beuys, 40 Years of Drawing (Installation View), via Art Observed
Joseph Beuys, 40 Years of Drawing (Installation View), via Art Observed
The drawings on view span the four decades of Beuys’s creative output; from the early representational works of the 1940s and 1950s to the conceptual sketches created from the mid-1960s that reflect the radical shift in his practice when drawings became integral devices related to the performances and sculptures he produced in the 1970s and 1980s.Beuys did not conceive of his works on paper as studies or preparatory material for projects in other mediums. Instead, he experienced the physical act of drawing as the primary means through which to crystallise his conceptual thinking. Gormley, who has developed a strong personal relationship with Beuys’s work, similarly describes drawing as ‘a form of physical thinking fundamental to his wider process of artistic creation’, stating that, for him, ‘a day without drawing is a day lost.’ This gestural and physical interaction with paper here turns towards an expansive look at the artist’s work in generation. Shapes and bodies float in and out of the viewer’s awareness, as if conjured forth but still struggling to find its point of articulation, while other works show mere gestures and strokes, and others still seem to be long lists of materials or names. The viewer is innately aware of the intimacy of these works.
Joseph Beuys, 40 Years of Drawing (Installation View), via Art Observed
Joseph Beuys, 40 Years of Drawing (Installation View), via Art Observed
To mark the exhibition, Antony Gormley has been invited to curate a standalone room of Beuys’s drawings, which are placed in conversation with his own works on paper. Titled SENSE: Beuys / Gormley, this presentation highlights the continuing influence of Beuys’s legacy on many artists working today.
The show closes March 22nd.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
Joseph Beuys: 40 Years of Drawing [Exhibition Site]
