Page 27 - Studio International - September 1971

7 Joseph Beuys
Speaking on TV
8 Joseph Beuys
Talking with Willy Brandt about free University
problems 1970
9 Joseph Beuys
Organization for direct democracy through
plebiscite; Street action 1971, Düsseldorf

interests of the people are entrusted to political
parties which choose their own candidates and
policies. After all the electoral promises have
been made, the parties remain, in Beuys's view,
guardians of the interests of those who hold
economic power. It is law that defines the
concept of the state; and if the power of the
state is truly to proceed from the people, Beuys
maintains that the constitution and the
fundamental rights of the citizen must be
established by the people, not by some political
elite. The laws have then to be administered, it
is true; this should not be done, however,
by a civil-servant caste but by delegates who can on the grounds that they are undemocratically be a return to a man-to-man teacher-pupil
be removed from office at any time. monopolized by a small number of galleries. relationship ? Why shouldn't it be possible for
To this end Beuys has founded an On another level, Beuys has opened a little office five lawyers just to get together and open up their
`Organization of Non-Voters', which calls on in the old part of Düsseldorf where he sets out to own law school ?
citizens to stop participating in local, provincial reach mainly the economically underprivileged This is the basic conception: 'There must be
and federal elections. The central idea in its `little men' : pensioners, apprentices, workmen, a search for the productive brainpower that is
programme is this : clerks. Discussions are held on the political there already. Everyone must have a chance, in
`We call ourselves the Organization of Non- feasibility of individual self-determination—just education, to equip himself for productivity, if
Voters because we have decided never again to as Socrates used to accost his fellow-citizens in he wants to, and for this the material basis must
elect some fellow who comes along a few days the street and ask 'What do you think about be created. This means that everybody must
before the election and sticks a notice on a tree self-knowledge ?' decide on a law to govern how much of the
saying "Köppler is coming" or some such Beuys says that politicians, whether of the existing private capital should be set aside for
nonsense. We don't want to vote for any more right or of the left, have no confidence in the education. It may be that the majority will
figureheads, we want to vote for basic laws.' people, and their whole activity is geared to decide that in order to achieve what I have in
Beuys sounds very disillusioned about buttressing their own pretensions to constitute mind—to open up potential productive resources
practical work with students. Students, he finds, an elite of leaders, thus perpetuating the situation —this money should be put back into the schools;
are often hopelessly volatile. At the end of a in which a minority rules the majority. They for capital is the product of human brain-power.
semester they are full-blooded revolutionaries, seek to gain the confidence of the electorate by It will always be through the development of
and after the vacation they are back at square telling it, in effect, 'Vote for us, we'll think for technology that industry will produce added
one. They may have exposed the contradictions you'. In contrast, Beuys wants to give 'every value—and this added value comes ultimately
of the systems, but they don't suffer directly individual the personal responsibility for the from education.'
from them. So they don't see the necessity of destiny of the State'. Freedom is not a static Much of this may seem utopian. But at
patient counter-organization. If one wants to condition but an evolutionary principle. The present the concept of Utopia is the most
convince the public that the parliamentary state immediate objective is to make this clear by way powerful weapon against the all-pervading
contradicts natural law and must therefore be of an information network which will initially be scientific view that the world is only what it
swept away, one has to go all the way through confined to Western Europe, where Beuys happens to be. And if one reads the utopian
the official channels. This requires an considers the memory of primeval democracy to ideas in the writings of the Blaue Reiter and
independent body of voters; and, in order to be strongest. Bauhaus groups, ideas which did actually lead to
build up such a thing, someone has to do the As a teacher himself, Beuys is interested in the realization of a new art, one is tempted to say
work of informing and organizing. The education above all; the first thing he stresses that reality can never be projected too far into
informing function is thus carried from the here is that people are gradually being liberated the unknown. It is only by taking today as one's
academy into the streets—and into the whole from the exigencies of work but are totally viewpoint and establishing a new evolutionary
business of art, as well. At the big 'Happenings unprepared for the intellectual productivity that perspective, one which has not been mapped out
and Fluxus' retrospective in Cologne last will become essential to survival. Survival is a beforehand, that the possible is achieved. Utopia
autumn, Beuys dispensed with the expected matter of the learning process : we must all is judged by the extent to which it is the art of
`event' and instead handed out a message calling become more productive thinkers. Beuys's the possible.
for a boycott of elections. For, in his words, 'The statement that 'the whole world is an academy'
new defining characteristic of an exhibition is means that everyone must learn, but not
information.' He recently called on all artists to necessarily in gigantic and therefore TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
boycott the dealer-based Kunstmarkt exhibitions monopolistic institutions. Why should there not DAVID BRITT
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