Earth piano

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Erdklavier is the title of an unrealized art action by Joseph Beuys from 1962.

history

In the summer of 1961, the artist George Maciunas, in a group of young visual artists and composers around the musician John Cage, found the term Fluxus as a magazine title for a culture magazine that they had wanted to found since 1960. This title was taken up by an event in Germany that was planned for the period from September 1 to 23, 1962 in the auditorium of the then municipal museum in Wiesbaden : FLUXUS: International Festival of New Music . The event was to include 14 “concerts” by Dick Higgins , Beuys, Alison Knowles , Wolf Vostell , Nam June Paik , Emmett Williams , Arthur Køpcke , Robert Filliou and Maciunas. Beuys had developed the idea of ​​the earth piano for this event , but he could not be present on the day of the planned performance, so his “concert” was canceled. He later commented on this as follows:

“The earth piano was practically an action for piano with earth. There were a number of options. First, to cut out a negative piano outdoors as a pit; then the possibility to shower a piano with earth; there was also a third version, namely to make a whole piano out of earth, that is, to make a normal Bechstein grand piano in earth; that was too complicated, I didn't have the right binder. But as a term this earth piano was much better, so it wasn't even realized. So that wasn't a first Fluxus campaign, but an idea that we discussed everywhere, that I also discussed with Paik. If I had participated in Wiesbaden, for example, I would have done something with the earth piano. "

Beuys had learned to play the piano in his youth. Beuys used the piano several times as an artistic object and as a musical instrument, for example in the performances Siberian Symphony 1st Movement (1963), Composition for 2 Musicians (1963), Infiltration Homogen for concert grand piano, the greatest contemporary composer is the Contergankind (1966), Revolution piano (1969), Konzertflügeljom (1969) and in the installation Plight (1985). In his art, the piano is considered a medium to unite sculpture and sound. He also used it as a so-called “silent sound sculpture”.

literature

  • Jürgen Geisenberger: Joseph Beuys and the music . Dissertation University of Eichstätt 1999, Tectum Verlag, Marburg 1999, ISBN 3-8288-8022-3 , p. 57 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Geisenberger, p. 58