Beuys-Land: Art and Climate Change

Among the numerous events commemorating Joseph Beuys` 100th birthday, an installation of photographs in Kleve, Germany, and the surrounding area stands out. "Beuys-Land: Art and Climate Change" focuses not on the artist and shaman, but on the person Joseph Beuys in his relationship to the natural landscape of the Lower Rhine.

In 1978, journalist Dr. Peter Sager and I spent several days with Joseph Beuys at the formative places of his childhood and youth. Seven of these photos, up to three meters in size, now stand at their original locations in and around Kleve. Peter Sager described this landscape pointedly: "Low horizon and high sky, Beuys feels at home. This is his landscape, very simple and with depth, barren like his works. Here, only those see something who see exactly.”

Initiator Prof. Dr. Frank Mehring (Radboud University; Nijmegen, Netherlands) establishes new connections: between Beuys and biography, Beuys and his work, and Beuys and climate change. For Beuys emphasized, "Art is the only form in which environmental problems can be solved". Beuys was far ahead of his time in ecological and sustainable thinking. At one point in front of a pond outside Kleve, Peter Sager quotes him as saying, "In fifty years, all you'll see are windmills...decentralized energy is coming, nuclear power plants aren't catching on.” Today, the horizon of Kleve reveals that the modern wind turbines Beuys envisioned have indeed become a reality.

The installations were on display until October 15.