Energie Plan for the Westman

Label TextBeuys saw art as inseparable from his controversial teaching and political beliefs, and attempted a kind of “social sculpture” that involved action and audience participation. Much of his work was based in performance, including lectures. In the 1960s, Beuys began preserving blackboards as documents of these events as well as a finished work of art. This board records a lecture give at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1974, during Beuys’ first tour of America. The quickly made chalk lines capture the spontaneous energy of Beuys’ speech, and feature iconography related to his ideas about the role of art in the larger sphere of social, political, and environmental issues.
Exhibition History"Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys," Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 15-May 17, 1992, (circulated to: The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A., June 14-Aug. 23, 1992; The Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 20 - Dec. 6, 1992; The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., Feb. 19, 1992-May 4, 1993)

"Warhol/Beuys/Polke," Milwaukee Art Musuem, June 19 - Nov. 15, 1987, (Did not travel to Houston)

"Director's Choice," thirty-four works of art purchased with the Director's Discretionary Fund, 1973-1982 - a gift to the Des Moines Art Center from the Gardner and Florence Call Cowles Foundation, Des Moines Art Center, Sept. 13 - Nov. 13, 1983
Published ReferencesDES MOINES ART CENTER: SELECTED PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES AND WORKS ON PAPER, Des Moines Art Center, 1985, ref. p.35, b/w ill. p.36

Ann Tempkin and Bernice Rose, THINKING IS FORM: THE DRAWINGS OF JOSEPH BEUYS, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1993

AN UNCOMMON VISION: THE DES MOINES ART CENTER, Des Moines Art Center, 1998, ref. p.56, color ill. p.57

Russell Bowman, WARHOL/BEUYS/POLKE, Burton and Mayer, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, 1987, b/w ill. p.77

"Director's Choice," Thirty-four works of art purchased with the Director's Discretionary Fund, 1973-1982, Des Moines Art Center, Sept. 13 - Nov. 13, 1983, b/w cat. ill.

DimensionsFrame (plexi): 52 1/4 × 100 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (132.7 × 254.6 × 5.7 cm)
Other (blackboard): 48 × 95 in. (121.9 × 241.3 cm)

Accession Number 1974.20

Classificationspainting

CopyrightARS

SignedJoseph Beuys Minneapolis 17.1.74 (verso l,l on cardboard)

ProvenanceArtist; (Dayton's Gallery 12, Minneapolis); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from the previous, 1974]

Collections

Collection Highlights

Images (1)

Audio (2)

60th Anniversary Audio Tour with Jeff Fleming, Director

DSM Speaks Audio Tour with Anthony Stevens, Community Member

Audio Transcript

DSM Speaks Audio Tour with Anthony Stevens, Community Member

Run Time: 37 seconds
Recorded by Anthony Stevens, CultureALL Community Ambassador / 2022

The chaos of science. The eloquence of learning sophisticated patterns. Order out of chaos. Simple lines, scribbles, mistakes, this is what your life is like. Salvation in an eraser. Another formula, another day. There’s a continuous stream there, but you only know that once you’re in it. One chalkboard, many souls.

Anthony Stevens Bio

Anthony Stevens is an award-winning quantitative psychologist and percussionist. He is published in ethnomathematics and individual differences. He performs and lectures throughout central Iowa.

DES MOINES SPEAKS

DSM Speaks are short audio reflections on artwork in our permanent collection, written and voiced by diverse members of our community. Contributors to this program were selected in partnership with CultureALL and the Des Moines Art Center. We hope by elevating these diverse ways of seeing we can encourage all visitors to connect more deeply and to see themselves and their identities within our walls.