The Israel Museum presents Beuys | Kantor: Remembering, the first exhibition juxtaposing the life and work of German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) and Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990), and the first comprehensive survey of Beuys’ work ever presented in Israel. With a particular focus on their parallel biographies, Beuys | Kantor examines the major 20th-century events and the complex relations among Germans, Poles, and Jews that altered the world view of that time and shaped the individual histories of these two renowned artists — and that reveal today issues of myth, memory, conflict, and war addressed directly and indirectly by each of them in their work. The exhibition will be on view through October 27, 2012.
Organized by the Israel Museum, the exhibition features approximately sixty works on loan from important public collections internationally, including three dimensional works, installations, and drawings, as well as films documenting each artists’ performance and theatre pieces.
“Joseph Beuys and Tadeusz Kantor are two of the most important figures in 20th century European art, each offering provocative and deeply personal perspectives on the horrific events that shaped both their personal lives and world history,” said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director. “Our exhibition is the first to present the works of Beuys and Kantor together, and the first comprehensive exhibition of Beuys in Israel. We look forward to sharing this unique joint exhibition, which will offer powerful new insights into both artists’ artistic achievements, with our audiences.”
Two artists who deliberately pushed the limits of art across a range of media, Beuys and Kantor are chiefly known for their actions, including happenings, theatre performances, street manifestations, lectures, seminars, and debates, as well for their shared focus on the medium of drawing. Beuys | Kantor: Remembering explores how the varied range of activity for both artists served as a visual means of dealing with their personal histories as well as with the history of their times. The complex question of Jewish-German-Polish relations and the traumatic upheavals in 20th century European history played an important role in shaping their work, which was at once deeply social and political and at the same time deeply personal. Each in his own way aimed to address the chaos of the 20th century, with such works as Beuys’s monumental installation The End of the Twentieth Century, consisting of large corpse-like pieces of rock strewn across an expansive open space, and Kantor’s A Great Emballage for the End of the Twentieth Century, from his theatre piece I Shall Never Return, 1988, in which characters from his earlier plays make re-appearances. The exhibition highlights how the artworks and artistic actions of each artist imbue this history with personal thoughts, emotions, and above all conscience, exemplifying their shared belief that the role of the artist is to restore, to reform, and to remember.
Beuys | Kantor: Remembering is curated by Jaromir Jedlinski, former director of the Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, under the direction of Suzanne Landau, Yulla and Jacques Lipchitz Chief Curator of the Fine Arts and Landeau Family Curator of Contemporary Art at the Israel Museum.
The exhibition was made possible by Lynn Schusterman and the Schusterman Foundation – Israel. Additional support was provided by The Association of Friends of the Israel Museum in Germany and the donors to the Museum’s 2012 Exhibition Fund.
About Joseph Beuys (1921–1986)
Joseph Beuys is celebrated as one of the most important and revolutionary European artists of the last century. Born in Krefeld, Germany in 1921, he grew up in Kleve, a border region between Germany and the Netherlands imbued with (in his words) “an atmosphere of mysticism.” In 1941, he enlisted in the army and trained as a radio operator in German-occupied Poland, also studying botany. He ultimately rejected the scientific method and replaced it with art, which he saw as a way of “mobilizing human creativity.”From early performances where he explored the role of artist as shaman, Beuys engaged his audience in unprecedented and provocative ways, calling upon art to be a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change. Embarking on a body of work that would blur the boundaries between art and life, Beuys created performance objects, installations, sculptures and drawings that challenge traditional notions of beauty and desire. The profoundly experimental nature of his work established Beuys as a founding father of the German avant-garde.
About Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990)
Tadeusz Kantor, a Polish painter, assemblage artist, set designer and theatre director, is renowned for his revolutionary performances and avant-garde theater and art. Born in 1915 in Wielopole Skrzynskie, Kantor studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he founded the Independent Theatre and served as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He also directed experimental theatre in Krakow and became known for his avant-garde stage designs. In 1955 Kantor led a group of visual artists, art critics, and art theoreticians to found the Cricot 2 Theatre, where he developed and tested his creative ideas, performing works that employed silent film-like scenery and juxtaposed mannequins with live actors. Having reached the limits of traditional theatrical concepts, the group began to stage “happenings” in the 1960s. Despite his wide-ranging artistic output, Kantor identified first and foremost as a painter throughout his life. – www.english.imjnet.org.il