Joseph Beuys’ ecology

Joseph Beuys is the absolute protagonist of the exhibition “The Green Tent”, where the PAV museum in Turin traces the links between art and ecology in Europe.

The PAV museum in Turin, Italy, presents the exhibition “The Green Tent (Das Grüne Zelt)”, on Joseph Beuys and the extended concept of ecology. The exhibition is the third chapter of an ideal trilogy, finishing the cycle of exhibitions intended to reconstruct a possible genealogy of the relationship between the artistic practices and the ecological conscience during the 1970s in Europe.

Joseph Beuys, Das Grüne Zelt der Grünen Düsseldorf, 1980. Courtesy Archiv Grünes Gedächtnis

Following “Earthrise. Visioni pre-ecologiche nell’arte italiana” (pre ecoogical vision in Italian art, 2015) and “ecologEast. Arte e natura al di à del Muro” (art and nature beyond the wall, 2016), this new exhibition aims to focus on the activity of one of the most notorious artists from the second half of the last century, favouring his relationship with the political institutions and the threat of the environmental crisis.

The exhibition coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of Beuys’ death (1986), and aims to be a tribute to the author of the “social sculpture”, within the institution founded by Piero Gilardi, who wrote for the first time in Italy about Beuys, in 1967. Despite the endless critical literature about the German artist’s activity, just in rare cases it has managed to transform the romantic and spiritual origins of the word ‘nature’ into the political one of the term ‘ecology’. All this in spite of the fact that Beuys’ perspective was strongly militating in that direction, leading him to chair the constitution of the German Greens movement that saw him, even if for a short time, as a candidate for the parliament.

Joseph Beuys, Latta di Olio F.I.U., 1984 — Joseph Beuys , *Oil Bottle*, 1984, oil bottle with printed sticker, ed. Lucrezia de Domizio, Pescara, 26 × 8 cm. Courtesy private collection, Milan

As a matter of fact a large green tent made its appearance on the morning of September 28 1980 in Düsseldorf’s Gustaf-Gründgens-Platz, opposite the Schauspielaus building, a work by Alvar Aalto. The tent set up by Beuys together with his collaborators is of help both as a real and as an ideal reference point – of meeting and organization – for the first Greens’ electoral campaign.

Joseph Beuys, Difesa della Natura (clavicembalo), 1981 — Joseph Beuys, *Difesa della Natura (clavicembalo)*, 1981, offset print, photo B. Durini, ed. Lucrezia De Domizio, Pescara and Yvon Lambert, Paris. Courtesy Collezione Palli

from 5 November 2016 to 19 March 2017
Joseph Beuys. The Green Tent (Das Grüne Zelt)
PAV Torino
via Giordano Bruno 31, Turin

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Joseph Beuys’ ecology

Joseph Beuys is the absolute protagonist of the exhibition “The Green Tent”, where the PAV museum in Turin traces the links between art and ecology in Europe.

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