Joseph Beuys

1980

Book, 24.2 x 16.3 cm.
Materials: paper, ink

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp.

From the mid-1960s onwards, Joseph Beuys' artistic and political activities became increasingly intertwined. He expressed political ideas in his works, yet at the same time he also regarded his own commitment as a work of art in itself. In Aufruf zur Alternative (Call for an Alternative), Beuys sketches elements of the crisis in which he feels post-war Europe has ended up: nuclear threat, environmental problems, unrestrained consumption and inequality created by money and state. Because the two dominant Western ideologies, capitalism and communism, caused this crisis, he proposes a ‘Dritte Weg’ (Third Way): through direct democracy, all creative initiatives that have a positive impact on society can shape the 'social sculpture'. When dissatisfied by communism and capitalism, there can be a Third Way, for finding individual emancipation, but with a sense of responsibility to society. In this way, Beuys opposes modernism's homogeneous grand narratives, shifting the emphasis on human creativity, direct action and nature.

“[The total alternative movement] consists of a multitude of movements, initiatives, organisations, institutions, etc. They all have a chance if they act jointly.”

“However, a common election initiative does not mean: party organisation, party programme, old-style party debate. The unity needed can only be UNITY IN DIVERSITY.”

“The movement of action groups, the ecological movement, the peace and women movement, the movement for democratic socialism, for humanist liberalism, for a Third Way, the anthroposophical movement and the Christian-confessional oriented movements, the civil rights movement and the movement for the developing world have to recognise that they are an indispensable part of the total alternative movement; parts that are not mutually exclusive or contradictory but are complementary."