Wolfgang Zumdick. Death Keeps Me Awake. Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner Foundations of their Thought

Transcription

1 Wolfgang Zumdick Death Keeps Me Awake Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner Foundations of their Thought Death_kma_ indd 3

2 Table of Contents Foreword 10 Ian George Background to the English translation David Thomas Translation Keeps Me Awake Shelley Sacks Preface to the English publication Wolfgang Zumdick Introduction 24 Wolfgang Zumdick 5 Death_kma_ indd 5

3 Table of Contents First Book On the Magnitude of Thought Introduction The Philosophy of Freedom Rudolf Steiner s Epistemology 31 The Epistemological Rationale 33 The reason for a Philosophy of Freedom and its relation to other works by Rudolf Steiner 36 Summary To perform the Wonder of Things 39 Microcosm and Macrocosm Steiner s Model of the Connections between these Worlds Microcosm 40 Macrocosm 45 Angels The Higher Forms of Thought Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition Imagination 49 Inspiration 53 Intuition 59 Moral Intuition 59 The I-In-Itself 60 Will 61 The Higher I-In-Itself Summary A Day in the Life of Brahma 66 World History as a History of the Human Being First Epoch: The Physical Development of the World Saturn, Sun, Moon, the Development of the Earth 68 Saturn [Fire] 69 Sun [Air] 70 Moon [Water] 70 Earth [Earth] 70 An Aside: World Genesis as a Cyclical Process 74 Second Epoch: The Development of Psyche in the World Fourth Aeon: Earth Paradise 76 The Fall from Grace 76 Christ Death_kma_ indd 6

4 Table of Contents Third Epoch: The Spiritual Development of the Earth The Later Phases of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan 80 Materialism 80 Resurrection Concluding Remarks 83 Second Book Revolution of the Concepts Introduction How does Beuys work with Steiner s Philosophy of Freedom? 2. [R]Evolution Cultures of Inspiration 100 Secularisation 105 Plato 106 Aristotle 108 Kant 111 Christianity 114 The City of the Sun I hereby resign from art 122 Joseph Beuys and the Expanded Concept of Art 4. Plastic Theory and Social Sculpture Afterword Appendix How is the Spiritual perceived in an Artwork 140 Inspirations: On the Development of an Artwork in Music, Poetry and Visual Form 140 The Receiver as Creator 145 The Spiritual in Art: Up and Down 155 Complete Picture Credits Quoted Literature Notes Death_kma_ indd 7

5 Background to the English translation David Thomas In 2009 I felt a need, personally and professionally to re-engage with the work of Joseph Beuys, particularly those aspects concerning sustainability and the forms that an artwork may take. To my knowledge, in Australia, his work and its implications were not being adequately addressed in the contemporary tertiary art school curricula. He had been relegated to history. Perhaps he was too dominant a figure in the 1970 s and 1980 s. So I started looking at his work again in detail and reading about him. In the Forward to What is Art? Conversations with Joseph Beuys I came across the words of Professor Shelley Sacks who explored the definition of the aesthetic and the anaesthetic.2 Her definitions rang true to my own musings, emphasising the difference between an enlivened experience of being and a dulled one. To her the aesthetic and art cannot simply be defined as style but as a means for developing a fuller understanding of ourselves in the world, a composite world that contains natural and cultural, political and personal elements manifest internally as thought and feeling and externally as form and action. Not long after reading this, in a meeting at RMIT University, that included Mr Ian George I quoted and paraphrased these ideas. To my surprise Ian s eyes lit up. Unknown to me Ian George was a passionate supporter of Beuys and Social Sculpture. Thus a collaboration was born between 12 Death_kma_ indd 12

6 Background to the English translation him, the RMIT Foundation, the School of Art, two of its research clusters, and Professor Shelley Sacks and Dr Wolfgang Zumdick of the Social Sculpture Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University. This culminated in a 7 day Social Sculpture workshop open to staff, students and the public in June 2010 at RMIT led by Professor Sacks and Dr Zumdick. The publication in English of Death keeps me awake by Dr Zumdick continues this collaboration. It would not have been possible without the generous support of all parties in particular Mr Ian George and the RMIT Foundation nor without the knowledge and sensitivity of Dr Zumdick and the informed translation of his writing by Professor Sacks. This book is relevant for artist, art student, academic and the interested general public. It fills a gap in the literature on both Beuys and Steiner by addressing the relationship of their ideas regarding imagination and freedom, intuition and the spiritual in art. Death keeps me awake provides an important contribution not only to our understanding of Beuys and Steiner but how we can engage with them to reconcile our understanding of the knowledge of the external world in relation to our internal experiences. It places their ideas in the context of western philosophy and how these are manifest via the concrete languages of words, art, of thought. It enables us to question the nature of what art is and might be and defines currently unfashionable terminology usually deemed romantic. It suggests that if we remain open and uncomfortable our accepted habits may be questioned. Death keeps me awake assists us in considering these ideas in a non-dogmatic manner and enables us to reflect upon where we position ourselves in the world. How we balance these considerations is important for us as individuals and by implication for the planet as a whole. Professor David Thomas PhD. School of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne 13 Death_kma_ indd 13

7 2. [R]Evolution Beuys combined the central tenets of his thinking into a philosophy of history, which he repeatedly depicted in a diagram, mostly on a blackboard. This diagram, reproduced and published several times, carries the significant title Evolution. 172 By means of a highly schematised drawing, Beuys outlines his notion of evolution and the metamorphosis of the human spirit [Fig. 15].173 The beginning of this development is illustrated on the left hand side of the blackboard and characterised by the term Myth [cp. Fig. 15a]. Beuys illustrates this mythological thinking by drawing a placenta above the terrestrial sphere. Earth is surrounded by pneuma, the placenta of the spiritual world. Through a notional umbilical cord thought is supplied with imaginations and inspirations, with images of myth or prophecies of the oracle. Early human cultures are depicted here as cultures of inspiration. Cultures of Inspiration In a conversation with the art academic, Willi Bongard, Beuys demonstrates this with reference to the collectivist traditions: The individual artwork only really reappears after the baroque period. What can one conclude from this? Doesn t one have to conclude that some kind of inspirational source must have been present in older art to create this shared sense? This inspirational source can be discovered in Egyptian art for example as a dictate of the 100 Death_kma_ indd 100

8 2. [R]Evolution 15 Joseph Beuys: Evolution, pencil, priesthood. The priesthood as mediator, as mediators with their deities, purport to transport the information from the extrasensory world and pass it on to the artists as dictate. In other words, the world has to conform to the prescriptions of the transcendental authorities. This is why there was a very strict canon, transmitted by the higher priesthood and regarded as dictate by the artists. Thus, art in ancient Egypt was to a large extent not yet an art of man but had its source in the extrasensory realm. 174 The extrasensory realm is the source not only of Egyptian culture but of all early cultures. The magicians and shamans of the archaic world as well as the priests of cultures emerging from their animistic religions were all inspired by the world of the spirit. Even in Plato, there still is a sense of human dependency on the gods for example, Socrates admission in the Symposium that his deepest insights into the nature of Eros were not arrived at through his own reasoning, but were revealed by the words of a prophetess from Apollo s sanctuary. Inspired minds like the prophetess, Diotima of Mantineia, directly experience the effect of thought forces and spiritual entities, and by virtue of their special spiritual ability they are capable of interpreting the language of the spirit Death_kma_ indd 101

9 Second Book Revolution of the Concepts For those not initiated into it, the spiritual world, whilst governing human action, is an incomprehensible realm interwoven by its multitude of divine, but also demonic forces. Because the uninitiated would, without spiritual guidance, fall into despair, they are seen to require the care of specialist inspired minds, as only they are in contact with the spiritual sphere. These recipients 16 of inspired knowledge have a mercurial function: like Hermes, they take on the role of messenger and mediator between divine and terrestrial world. They are, as Nietzsche puts it, the mouthpiece 176 of the gods. Dreamlike, mythical images once appeared to the founders of mythological religions, and like dreams, the visions of her god Apollo, appear to the prophetic Pythia. Joseph Beuys: Sybilla Pythonissa, Death_kma_ indd 102