Joseph Beuys’ artistic practice was closely linked to political action. He moved his artistic practice from the studio to social interaction. In the already politically turbulent seventies, this attitude certainly fit the picture. But what about political art today? Is a new gap emerging for it in our equally heated times?
That’s what painter, performer, translator, author and curator Robo Švarc and author, translator and librarian Michal Hvorecky talk about with Florian Malzacher in this episode of “The Earth Speaks.” Florian Malzacher is a curator, dramaturge, author and visiting professor at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at the University of Giessen and has worked with the theater group Rimini Protokoll, among others.
Fat and felt, expanded concept of art and social sculpture, celebrated, criticized and ambivalent. The podcast “die erde spricht” (the earth speaks) takes an international look at Joseph Beuys and his artistic as well as intellectual legacy and is the result of a cooperation between beuys2021 and the Goethe-Institut. The podcast episodes explore the traces that Beuys, his works and his thinking have left in art and societies – in artistic, discursive and critical ways. “Die Erde spricht” gathers personal stories, experimental audio performances and original sounds from many countries around the world and lets a polyphonic kaleidoscope resound, which deals in many ways with the person Joseph Beuys and his work.
The episodes, supervised by the Goethe-Institut, come from artists and intellectuals from 15 countries around the world. The complete podcast, including the episodes from Germany curated by beuys2021, can be accessed on the usual podcast portals.