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Joseph Beuys visited Antwerp in the late 1960s and early 1970s for exhibitions and events at Wide White Space Gallery run by Anny De Decker and Beuys’ former student Bernd Lohaus. It was here for example on February 9, 1968, Beuys and Henning Christiansen's action Eurasienstab (Eurasian Staff) took place. At that time, Beuys was little known outside Germany, but it was here that Beuys was brought into contact with artists such as Marcel Broodthaers and Panamarenko.

Antwerp was connected to Beuys’ hometown of Cleves through his depictions of swans in many works. The bird was a reference to Wagner’s Lohengrin, an opera following in the Swan Knight tradition, set on the banks of the river Schelde in Brabant. The tradition of the Swan Knight tale in Europe was also the inspiration for the Schwanenburg Castle in Cleves.

In 1980, the first subsidiary of Beuys Free International University (FIU) outside Germany was founded, in Antwerp. At regular intervals, and for four years, artists and other thinkers in Antwerp inspired by Beuys had conversations about ecology, art and politics.

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