Joseph Beuys, Difesa della natura, 1984, color offset on heavy paper. The Broad Art Foundation. Photo: Joshua White / JWPictures.com © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Joseph Beuys initiated the planting of 7000 oak trees in Kassel in 1982, as part of the Dokumenta 7 exhibition, making a strong statement for more environmental care and protection. However, decades later, the climate crisis reached its peak, as environmental catastrophes fill news outlets daily, and strong negation of the same comes from the right side of the political spectrum.
While art history provides examples of different approaches to environmental issues, from curative to exploitative, it is important to revisit those examples that can give a strong impetus for future organizing, where creativity and politics come together to provide a joint action plan against the rising peril.
Among such examples is Joseph Beuys's environmental art and advocacy for direct democracy, which perfectly blend environmental concerns with political propositions. The presentation of his environmental projects is therefore worth revisiting, which was undertaken recently by the LA-based museum The Broad. The exhibition In Defense of Nature, curated by The Broad's Sarah Loyer and Beuys scholar Andrea Gyorody, has presented over 400 works from the museum's collection, in combination with Social Forest: Oaks of Tovaangar, the museum's major reforestation initiative launched as part of Getty's project PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
The art and theory of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) has a deep ecological character. While Western philosophy and theory, starting with Descartes, made a clear division between humans and nature, recent crises in ecosystems worldwide have prompted a rethinking of these positions and provided different perspectives that reject the previous anthropocentrism. Instead of being the supreme rules of the natural world, humans are now observed as just one of its subsystems that should act in balance with others.
However, decades ago, when Beuys started his environmental projects, anthropocentrism was still the dominant mode of thinking about the human-nature nexus. Realizing that this dichotomous approach could not bring real change in our relationship to nature, Beuys proposed a different route to solution—through a deep restructuring of society and the human mind.
His actions and art thematize the ways he endeavored to bring about social change and include a synergy of materials and ideas in enacting it. Contemporary with his artistic actions was also Beuys's participation in the founding of the German Student Party and the Green Party, in which he would play an important role. Through them, Beuys advocated for a complete social overhaul of previous structures and modalities of existence and thought, in favor of a new system based on creativity and freedom. As he explained, the problem was the "complicity between the power of money and the power of the state." Instead, inspired by anthropologist Rudolf Steiner, he agitated for the division between legislative politics, culture, and economy, the so-called "threefold social order."
Beuys conceptions of art changed and developed with time, leading to the idea of 'social sculpture,' where everyone is an artist. Thinking on how art can work together with other social forces to bring change, he envisioned the total reconstruction of the social organism "as a work of art," which radically broadened the idea of art from object- to idea-oriented activity that could defy commodification.
He explained: "Only a conception of art revolutionized to this degree can turn it into a politically productive force, coursing through each person and shaping history."
The socio-ecological approach begins with 'Everyone is an Artist.'
To engage people in the revolutionary struggle for societal change, Joseph Beuys used different means in his expanded approach to art: from public events and dialogues to installations, and his famous multiples, to mention a few. Disillusioned with the art world, he turned to various natural materials and animals to deepen human awareness and connect it with prelinguistic cultures and natural ecologies. Goats, moose, elk, and hares, among others, were part of his actions, where he performed as a primordial shaman, channeling forgotten energies that are needed again for spiritual awakening.
In The Chef—Fluxus Song (1964) he spent eight hours rolled in a hare felt, with two dead hares on each side while mimicking stag cries. This and similar actions aimed at conjuring these energies and transforming the self, which is necessary for environmental and social change. Taking the sounds of other animals, Beuys, as he explained later, aimed to reconnect with other forms of existence.
His 1965 action, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare continued along this line of investigation. As Beuys explained:
"The idea of explaining to an animal conveys a secrecy of the world and of existence that appeals to the imagination."
Art historian David Adams notes that the hare "represented the sharpened materialistic thinking of science that now needed to be informed by living intuitive thinking." The artist's head was covered in honey and gold leaf, symbolizing the collectivity and warmth of the beehive as an alternative to the individualistic, cold rationality. Honey, beeswax, felt, plants, and fat, all harnessed by the artist in his actions, are materials 'sculpting' the natural energies, conveying the importance of developing a more nurturing attitude towards nature.
One of Beuys's most famous ecological projects and the largest eco-sculpture is 7000 Oaks: city forestation instead of city administration. Beyond being a mere action of planting trees, the project included posters and public campaigns aimed at changing how people think about nature. In Gesamtkunstwerk Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Beuys proposed revitalizing Hamburg’s most polluted site, Altenwerder, along the lines of his 'social sculpture,' combining ecological, political, and aesthetic elements.
A series comprising three works, The End of the Twentieth Century (1983-1985), is among Beuys's last ecological pieces. Each installation includes basalt rocks (twenty-one, thirty-one, and forty-four) with drilled cone-shaped cavities lined with clay and felt The one owned by Tate was installed after Beuys's passing. While the haphazard arrangement of stones (Beuys did not leave clear instructions on how to arrange them) evoked a pessimistic, post-apocalyptic attitude for art historian Mark Rosenthal, others suggested a more restorative and hopeful meaning. Art historian Victoria Walters links the stones to Beuys's notion of time, where the past and the new ecological consciousness come together. As Beuys explained:
This is the end of the twentieth century. This is the old world, on which I press the stamp of the new world.
Beuys was not only a radical ecologist but also "the pioneer investigator of the role of art in forging radical ecological paradigms for the relationship between human beings and the natural environment," explains Adams. He actively investigated how art can help bring a more profound understanding of our relationship with nature and social structuring, against the destructive tendencies of consumerism, capitalism, and patriarchy.
Joanne Heyler, Founding Director of The Broad, remarked:
Beuys's focus on democracy and environmental justice remains deeply relevant today. Through his innovative concept of ‘social sculpture,’ he demonstrated the power of art to connect and uplift—affirming the resilience of humans to reconcile with each other and with the past, and seed a better, more just future.
The reforestation project Social Forest that accompanies In Defense of Nature enlivens Beuys legacy in the present moment, beyond the confines of the white cube. His critical approach to ecological issues, his emphasis on care and the 'female principle' in human-nature relationships that became prominent with ecofeminism, and his radical overhaul of sedimented notions of art, expanding its meaning to encompass broad political actions, left a strong mark on activist and artistic scenes of the later decades. It is a heritage that continues to be examined, and whose lessons and ideas remain relevant today, perhaps more than ever.
The exhibition Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature will be on view at The Broad in Los Angeles until March 23rd, 2025.
