Celtic (Beuys)

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Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch) and Celtic + ~~~ were two actions with a similar course by the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) in collaboration with the Danish musician and Fluxus composer Henning Christiansen in 1970 and 1971.

prehistory

During a visit to Edinburgh in May 1970, Beuys made a film of the same name with Richard Demarco at Rannoch Moor , which was then projected on Celtic . This showed the moor landscape, in front of which a hand was handling fat or gelatine. Beuys: “… that had lived in me for a long time: Scotland, Arthur's round table, the Grail story. The elements met and emerged. Because of the preliminary work. You don't have to take that as a score. The preparatory work is related to my life ... "

Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch)

The action Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch) performed by Beuys and Christiansen as a contribution to the Edinburgh Festival in 1970 at the Edinburgh College of Art over five days. According to Henning Christiansen, three times before the actual appointment and twice on a few days, a total of twelve times. The action lasted 3½ hours.

preparation

In the room were Henning Christiansen's acoustic equipment - cassette recorders, tape recorders , amplifiers - as well as a film projector with a projection surface, a piano and microphones. Pieces of gelatin were glued to the back wall . An ax stood against one of the microphone stands. A spear, a large round silver plate, a ladder and a blackboard were also used.

Before the action, Beuys and Christiansen had prepared the two pieces “Scottish Symphony” and “Requiem of Art - Fluxorum organum”, which were played in Celtic . The former reproduces the tones and noises that were created when the grand piano was tuned in the action area.

The action

In the darkened, neon-lit room, a tape with piano recordings first played. Beuys began to draw a diagram on the school blackboard on the floor and then pushed it across the room with a stick. He gave instructions to play the film Eurasienstab - accompanied by the composition fluxorum organum . During the action, Beuys suddenly stood in the middle of the room, making faces and laughing and performing abstruse contortions. The film "Rannoch Moor" , which Beuys had shot with other protagonists in the Scottish Highlands , was then shown. The accompanying music came from the composer Arthur Køpcke . Then brute organ music was played, mixed with screams, while Beuys, standing on a ladder, removed the gelatin pieces from the walls and threw them onto a silver plate balanced with his left hand. Then he put the ladder aside, lifted the gelatin plate over his head and poured the mass over himself. He put the plate on the floor, instead picked up the blackboard with the diagram and shouted “Ö! Ö! Ö! ". Then he lay down on the ground, jumped up again, grabbed the spear and stayed in a standing position, looking straight ahead, for over an hour.

The audience fluctuated during the actions; some stayed shorter, others longer, some came repeatedly. The number of spectators ranged from a few to a hundred.

Celtic + ~~~

Celtic + ~~~ took place on April 5, 1971 in an air raid shelter in Basel , again in a collaboration between Beuys and Henning Christiansen. The Edinburgh performance was preceded by a ritual washing of feet, which Beuys performed on seven people. The action then followed almost identically as in Edinburgh, but the cramped basement and the crowded audience hindered Beuys during his performance. An additional part followed: Beuys picked up a plaque with the note “Grail Guardian Beuys” from the floor and strapped a flashlight around both thighs while making unintelligible sounds. Then he got into a bathtub filled with water and let his partner Christiansen pour water from a jug over his head.

The additional sequences were created by Joseph Beuys at a special event on February 5, 1971 in Düsseldorf. He titled them with ~~~ or the alternative name Aquarius .

Christ iconography

The cleansing rite of washing the feet, Beuys said later, refers to a complete cleansing, a fundamental healing of the entire social field - right down to the social organisms: “It is the impurity that has to be cleansed. Because the way the world is, it must not be. ” In doing so, he did not want to identify with the role of Christ and the rite of the washing of the feet , but rather to point out the spiritual potential present in every human being and to encourage it to develop: “ Well , not that I take on the role of Christ, but the role of man as one who has this power. ” The term“ Christianity ”is often perceived as a burden. “Then one asks oneself: How can one work out what a Christ impulse is? What is that, actually? Is that a merely historical or is it a present-real event? "

reception

Uwe M. Schneede (1994) writes: "Celtic, this - judged by effort and echo - most conspicuous of the Beuys' actions, had in a programmatic way the transformation through art. Demonstrating a complex art practice, in the gestures and body, drawing and Language, music and film, time and space were equally included, this action demanded and demonstrated the replacement of the old term by a new one. In doing so, it took up Christian and non-Christian rites in order to assert spiritual renewal from a social point of view. "

literature

  • Uwe M. Schneede : Joseph Beuys. The actions, annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 1994, ISBN 3-7757-0450-7 , pp. 266-299

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Uwe M. Schneede : Joseph Beuys. The actions, annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 1994, ISBN 3-7757-0450-7 , therein pp. 266-273 on "Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch)"
  2. ↑ Heiner Stachelhaus: Joseph Beuys , page 177
  3. ↑ a b c Uwe M. Schneede : Joseph Beuys. The actions, annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 1994, ISBN 3-7757-0450-7 , therein pp. 274-299 on "Celtic + ~~~"
  4. ↑ Schneede (1994) sees a reference to a note by Beuys in his calendar: " Aquarian Age = Age of Abundance (...)" (1965)
  5. ^ Nicole Fritz: Inhabited Myths - Joseph Beuys and the superstition. P. 121, quoted from Beuys, in: Beuys, in: Friedrich Mennekes “In Conversation”, Beuys Interview, in: Franz Joseph van der Grinten / Friedhelm Mennekes, Menschenbild - Christusbild. Stuttgart 1984, p. 109, cit. after Schneede 1994. PDF
  6. ↑ Nicole Fritz: Inhabited Myths - Joseph Beuys and the Superstition p. 113, quoted from Norbert Dragerth: It is a Has' sprung. Joseph Beuys and Christmas: A riddle is finally solved, in: FAZ of December 21, 1994. [1]
  7. ↑ Horst Schwebel in conversation with Joseph Beuys in, Believable. Five conversations about art and religion today. Munich 1979, pp. 15-42. [2]