Category: Exhibitions

Bees were the subject of Speakers Corner today – so during the tour we explored the symbolism of the materials that Beuys used and the way he manipulated them to create meaning. The tour included a range of familiar and new faces all of whom were keen to find out something new.

The first image as you walk into the gallery is both powerful and an ideal starting point and I explained that it was the complexity of the man and his ambitions that interested me. Beuys had a breadth of knowledge and understanding about the natural world, the world of politics and education and it seemed important to say that some of his ideas and beliefs were simple to understand but sometimes they were confusing and difficult – but it really didn’t matter whether you understood them all or not. I wanted to suggest that knowing things in a factual way is not the only way of appreciating art and that by shifting the emphasis back to the viewer they could open their mind to what things might mean to them.

We looked at some of the materials Beuys used – iron, steel, felt. He strongly believed that materials were not neutral – that they always had strong associations with the past. In connection with Speakers Corner we looked at how he used various substances, such as honey and fat as a means of healing or nourishment and whether his idea was to start healing western Europe after the horrors of the Second World War or maybe, as one of the tour suggested, to heal himself too ! For me the appeal of his choice of materials is the avoidance of anything arty and his desire to re-use and reformulate his materials or even to use ready made items such as a water bottle or a sled. I like the way he pushes the materials into strange ways of being – like the honey pump – which raises lots of questions – what does 2 tons of honey look like how do you get it to move through a pump ? Hope I remember to ask the speaker !

Fat chair is an extraordinary piece of work and we talked about the qualities of fat and lard and their mutability. We tried to imagine how bad it might smell once out of its air conditioned box. The idea that anyone could put two different materials together and create something so strange and compelling seemed magical – an idea that sits happily with Beuy’s belief that he was a transformer and trickester – changing things, mixing things up to create meaning and then, sometimes, changing his mind.

One lady, who has attended every talk, said how she had never heard of Beuys until recently and exclaimed how excited she is by his work and how privileged she feels in being able to see some of his wonderful sculptures and drawings locally at the De La Warr Pavilion.

We held Speakers Corner on the north staircase today – it was light, airy and gave ample room for people to sit and listen, join in or drop in and out of the session. As the sun poured in Angie Biltcliffe told us about her passion for bees and beekeeping. After a short course on bee keeping at Plumpton College she has spent the last 5 years building up a series of hives dotted in and around Hastings.

On the table in front of her was an old observation hive containing bees … lots of bees seemingly squished into quite a small space …. but they seemed quite happy in their waxy home. Also there was a jar of pale honey from one of Angie’s hives made from apple blossom, a lump of hardened wax, and some cleaned combs – beautifully constructed and smelling sweet and flowery. A member of the audience wanted to know how much honey a bee makes and the surprising answer is – about one to two teaspoons of honey in its lifetime. A bee might make ten trips a day and visit 100 flowers per each trip and probably does this every day of its life, which is about 4 weeks. Angie said that her hives this year were doing very well with one probably producing 60 lbs of honey.

Angie described how sensitive the bees are in response to human behaviour – so if you are jumpy and nervous the bees will be too. She explained how initially she was rather nervous of the bees, worrying that they might sting her, but with time she found them very restful and calming, suggesting that the humming they make is soothing. She also put forward the belief that bee keepers are rarely ill – so enhanced are they by their activities that they stay healthy.
A hive might contain between 20,000 and 80,000 bees. At the core is the Queen bee which may live up to 3 years and lay around half a million eggs. She is raised in the normal way but fed more royal jelly. A disussion broke out on the subject of royal jelly and how it is found in cosmetics – which does seem rather wasteful of the bees efforts. Once the queen has developed she takes flight and begins mating, with several or many drones. The mating takes place some distance from the hive and several hundred feet in the air. The drones are the largest bees and exist soley to mate with the queen, after which they are a bit of a burden. The workers are mainly female bees and they work hard to ensure the hive thrives. At each stage of their life they have a specific job to do whether it is cleaning cells and incubation or later being entrance guards and nectar and pollen foraging.
Questions from the audience indcluded ones about swarming, Angie assured us that a swarm of bees is quite safe, they are not in a defensive state and will not harm you. The audience was very keen to get up close to the bees and study the honey, the combs etc and at the end of the talk there was a surge of people wanting to know more about bee keeping and Angie offered to help anyone who was interested.

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EXHIBITION VIEW

Beuys is a catalyst. 

Today in the gallery I decided to record what people told me about Beuys. But what they mostly told me wasn’t about Beuys. It was about their lives. 

I never found out the name of the man who didn’t want to talk about art. At least he didn’t want me to record his thoughts. But he did tell me that he and his wife were in Bexhill to see a 100 year old relative. “Her life has spanned all of Beuys’ – and more. I wonder what she’d think of all this. She’s very alert and vivacious.” As we gazed out the gallery window at the gleaming white colonnades in front of the Pavillion, I thought about this old woman and her long life. She was already 2 when those colonnades were built in 1911. I thought about all the things she’s seen and heard. I thought about the contributions she has made to the world around her. I thought about her creativity. 

I never found out the names of the 2 grandparents or their 2 grandchildren, who stopped in front of Rose for Direct Democracy. “If only I’d known this was here,” said the woman. “I was searching for a red rose to look at for an embroidery I’m making.” I told her about a piece of embroidery I have, made in Ireland by an elderly relative of mine in the 1950s. “That sounds beautiful,” she said. “I do all mine by hand you know. It’s all hand-stitched. Not like lots of people these days who want to use machines.” “You must be very skilful,” I said. “Oh I don’t know,” she said. 

I asked the children if they thought Beuys’ rose was real or not. “How would you find out without touching it?” I asked. “Wait until it dies,” said the boy. ‘Then you’d know.” He was about 8 years old. 

His grandfather pricked up his ears when I said something about Sled and Beuys being in the German air force during World War II. He started talking about the experience of being bombed out 3 times when he was a youngster in Kensington. He described being evacuated and all the schools having to close down. His grandchildren liked the sound of this! They asked him to tell them more. He did. When he talked about the great loss and pity of it all, I pointed out Beuys’ Samurai Sword, a sword-like length of iron ‘safely’ wrapped in felt. The man paused for thought and then quietly said, “This is very different from the kind of art I was brought up with.” But we hadn’t really been talking about art, had we? 

WENDY who invigilates in the gallery told me this: “Most people are mystified. Many deride the work and laugh at it saying, ‘I could do that.’ So I sometimes say, ‘Yes, you probably could.’ And then a conversation begins and life-stories emerge – like the man who said he couldn’t understand these objects but then went on to tell me all about his collection of stones from every place he’s ever visited. For him, it was about the journey of his life. Or the man who scoffed at Neapolitan Ladder but then described in great detail all the technical challenges he had faced in fitting a recycled old garden gate into its new position! Once you help people find a way in then … then they realise that the work chimes with something in their own life.” 

GARY is a total Beuys fan! He said, “I work in a gallery in London. I’m what they used to call a gallery warden but then they decided that sounds too much like a prison. So now I’m called an attendant. I’ve followed Beuys around for years. Madrid, Paris, London … all over the place. It’s my birthday tomorrow and my wife said, ‘What do you really want to do?’ Well, we both love Bexhill and we both love Beuys. So it was an easy choice! It’s an absolute joy!” 

PETER talked about Beuys’ fantastic eye. “It’s the real thing. Every object is beautiful. It’s top, museum-quality stuff. He’s a fraud of course. But he’s got such a good eye!” I asked what he meant by that but he didn’t want to say any more. Just this: “Every object is magnificent.” Peter’s friend wanted to know how the posters were mounted on to their backing. I said I didn’t know. But in the space of a few exchanges I felt I knew something about their lives – that like Gary, they live and breathe for art! You can’t fake that kind of enthusiasm and attention to detail. 

GEORGINA has observed all sorts of extreme reactions to the work in her role as invigilator. “Beuys is like Marmite,” she said. “You either love it or you hate it! But I think it’s better to provoke strong reactions than just be all on one level. Some people are coming back again and again.” 

STEPHANIE was very self-effacing about her own creativity. But standing in front of Beuys’ Sled, she told me this: “The other night, I put together on a table a little collection of my own things – things that mean something to me: my glass, a CD from my son for my birthday, found objects from the beach, all sorts of things. They say a lot about my inspirations. They’re a snapshot in time. In Majorca, I collected bits of broken glass on the beach. The sea had polished them like jewels. The sea did its job. Then I played a role.” I said, “So you’re an artist, are you?” Stephanie laughed shyly and said, “No no. I … dabble. Isn’t that what they say?” 

Is it? Why? 

Please feel free to add your comments here. How does Beuys connect to your life-story? 

SPEAKERS’ CORNER

Just because a story isn’t true, doesn’t mean it lacks truth!

Julian Porter is curator at Bexhill Museum and author of Bexhil-on-Sea: a History as well as a collection of archival photographs of Bexhill and the surrounding area. For Speakers’ Corner today, he took as his theme the fine line between truth and fiction that circumscribes so much of what we think we know about local history. This linked very nicely to Beuys’ famous tendency to blur the boundaries between ‘real’ biography and personal mythology. 

According to Julian, even the science of etymology is a little hazy when it comes to the place-name Bexhill. It might mean ‘a wood or clearing where box trees grow’ or it might be derived from words meaning ‘windy hill.’ Nobody really knows. 

Linking to Beuys and the German connection, Julian talked about “the barrack phase” of the town’s history when, in the early 1800s, thousands of Hanoverian soldiers were billeted in the area. There’s plenty of historical evidence for this. But he also mentioned the local belief that during World War II, a German spy lived in the roof spaces of the De la Warr Pavilion and at night opened the blackout blinds so that the German pilots could see their targets more clearly! It’s a great story. But is it true? 

I particularly liked Julian’s account of the ‘discovery’ of coal in the Bexhill area during the early 1800s. In fact, it wasn’t coal at all but that didn’t stop the promoters of this venture insisting that it was! In the end, they lost all their money but not before they’d persuaded many otherwise sensible and rational people to invest in a seam of coal that didn’t even exist! 

Most of this fascinating conversation centred on the theme of smuggling – a form of ‘alternative’ economy that I can’t help thinking Beuys would have applauded. But as Julian pointed out, it’s easy to romanticise a trade in contraband goods that in reality was underpinned by violence and intimidation. 

There’s plenty of hard evidence for the existence of smuggling networks in the Bexhill area. Some of the main smuggling families even kept account books, which can be seen in Bexhill Museum’s collection. (I couldn’t help thinking about our contemporary Banking trade with it’s meticulous records and dodgy principles!) But there’s also a good deal of folklore surrounding the subject as well as plenty of just plain nonsense! Julian was careful to emphasise that local folklore is a precious thing and should be recorded and celebrated. Actually, the word lore means ‘knowledge.’ But it’s a very different kind of knowledge than the stuff we derive from documentary evidence. 

On the question of the complex network of secret underground tunnels that are said to have enabled the traffic of contraband goods from place to place in the Bexhill area, Julian  said that he has yet to see one with his own eyes! A woman from the audience said, “We have a passage leading to and from our cellar but it’s been filled in.” Julian pointed out that Bexhill’s geology wasn’t conducive to the digging and maintaining of extensive tunnels but the woman wasn’t deterred. “Our house is built on sandstone!” she said. Interestingly, she described deeds she has in her possession which name the owners of her house in the Old Town going right back to 1733. She wondered whether any of these names might match the names of known smugglers as recorded in the Museum’s collection of records. Julian thought this was worth looking into but he also pointed out that some of these so called ‘tunnels’ might well be the remains of a sophisticated system of drainage channels in the area. 

Smuggler’s tunnels or drainage channels? Rescued by nomads or found by a search commando? Which makes the best, most resonant story? 

Beuys claimed that his 1961 series of drawings Ulysses Extension was carried out “at James Joyce’s request.” Joyce died in 1941!

As the Irish storytellers used to say at the start of a story, “I don’t know if it’s true or if it’s a lie. But if it’s a lie, it wasn’t me that made it up. So you can’t call me a liar!” 

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), a major influence on Beuys’ thinking wrote that we can only contribute to the progress of humanity when we give up our dependence on ‘proofs’ in favour of ‘the unfathomable dreams of truth.’ On the other hand … if you DO know of any hard evidence for the existence of a smuggler’s tunnel in the area, please get in touch with Bexhill Museum immediately so that Julian can see it with his own eyes! 

Please feel free to tell your Bexhill story here. Don’t worry if you can’t provide evidence! 

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The exhibition tour was made up of people up of who knew nothing about Beuys and wanted to find out about him and his work. We began by looking at the way he created a public persona and compared it with that of Warhol. They seemed to have much in common in terms of creating a public face yet the societies in which they operated were quite different and led to the creation of very different types of art. We talked about at the way Beuys used materials in often simple yet direct ways and how they were laden with symbolism and meaning which he alternatively wanted interpreted and didn’t. We touched on his role in the war and how much it informed the direction his political and social views took as well as directing his actions and teaching . Towards the end of the tour we looked at how big his ambition was in terms of wanting to change society through art, and talked about whether he was idealistic ,arrogant or just very single minded –or, more likely, a combination all of these !

At Speaker’s Corner today Milan Rai, author of Chomsky’s Politics and co-editor of Peace News, focussed on the relationships between different types of society and their individual tendencies for aggression, war, the worship of war and conflict resolution.
Milan defined war as a relatively impersonal form of lethal aggression resulting in death or injury, inflicted by the members of one community on another. He then posed 3 questions about the origins of war –

The first question was ‘Is war as old as humanity?’ and Milan described how archaeological indicators (settlement design and the existence of weapons in burial grounds) point to the existence of the hominid line over 200,000 years yet traces of war-like activity don’t exist much beyond 10,000 years.

Current research shows that societies with hunter-gatherer modes of existence, that is semi nomadic with fluid relationships, lack of authority structures and largely egalitarian in character, are not inclined not to make war – they prefer to run away from any perceived danger. War is more likely to be promoted or carried out by societies which are highly stratified with strong authoritarian organisations and a defined class structure.

The second question was ‘Is war eradicable? Milan explained how the popular belief that wars arise from our aggression is clearly wrong. We have all felt angry or experienced rage but these experiences do not lead to war. The activation and implementation of the war machine is a cool, logistical and methodical process which involves the design, construction and mobilisation of ships, planes, nuclear submarines, warheads and missiles – none of this has anything to do with anger or rage. War requires dispassionate obedience and technology above all else. The current situation in Afghanistan shows clearly how the British state and British society are not in agreement over Britain’s involvement – there is a divergence of motivation. This idea was further explored by Milan who made the point that during the Crusades the two motivating factors were greed and materialism, the state, and piety and strong religious belief, the people and the crusaders. This led to a discussion about our ability to live without war, which ideally would mean a move away from rigid authoritarian structures with obedient and compliant populations, but it seems highly unlikely that we could return to a complex pre-industrial state without authority in order to stop making war. Referring to Afghanistan again, Milan explained how in the past wars were about things like territory, resources and ideas, but in Afghanistan it is their interpretation of democracy that we in the west are fighting about. A member of the audience explained how his friends in Afghanistan upheld their kind of democracy through the tribal systems, a method rejected by USA and UK.

The question ‘Why do human’s worship war’ came next and Milan outlined how changes in our thinking about ‘man the hunter’ and ‘man the warrior’ have shifted in recent years. He suggested that there is no evidence to support the idea of ‘man the warrior’ as a typical human characteristic. War fever, rallying around and the exultation felt by those about to embark on the First World War is a universal worshipping response to a threat. Yet the language of war and the respect that warriors hold for each other suggests that the underlying feelings are not ‘how great it is to kill’ but rather ‘how great it is to give your life for your community’.

Questions from the audience about the need or necessity for bloodletting led to a discussion about the comparisons between humans and Chimpanzees and Bonobo monkeys. Both types of great ape are the nearest extant relative to human yet each group has different ways of behaving – The Chimpanzees are prone to violent interchanges between groups whereas the Bonobo is recorded as non violent and uses sex as a means of greeting, conflict resolution and reconciliation. As humans therefore we have the potential perhaps to act either way but Milan suggested that is a political decision to go to war rather than an individual one. He went on to further say that the British state has evolved (since the middle ages everyone has paid taxes which in turn pay for war) to have the financial capacity to conquer or defend.

The audience asked questions about the prevention of war and Milan described some ideas about conflict resolution techniques– the serial killer who is eventually killed by his own family (taking the ‘law’ into their own hands perhaps something we wouldn’t believe possible today) in order to prevent harm to others and further creating a feud which would harm the larger group. Secondly the idea of ritualised conflict such as that found in ancient wall paintings – two lines of warriors with swords lined up on opposite walls with the aim of each taking a turn to aim an arrow at his counterpart until blood is drawn and then the conflict is ended. The Greeks used the heroes of opposing factions to fight against each other thus acting out and ritualising conflict without the need for mass slaughter. However it does seem that however reasonable these techniques might appear it is hard to see how they could be applied on an international scale.

Lastly, and perhaps on a more positive note, the audience discussed how changes in the hierarchy can be made to lessen the likelihood of war. Milan talked about the rolling back of oppression – how if we take the long view of history things look much brighter –in many parts of the world slavery has been abolished and feudal systems no longer exist. Also many oppressed groups eg women, children, members of ethnic/religious groups now have greater rights and freedoms than ever before – so if we project these accelerating changes into the future – it doesn’t look so bad.

For those interested in further reading the books Milan referred to are :- …. Beyond War by Douglas P Fry and Blood Rites by Barbara Ehrenreich.

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Last Saturday was a day full of questions, some answered more easily than others. The first came as I struggled to find a place to park. All roads around the DLWP were lined with eager locals and there was a large group of kilted men standing patiently in the main shopping area. It took me a few minutes to work out that Bexhill Carnival was about to start and that the gallery might be a little quieter than I’d expected.

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There was quite a steady flow of people in the gallery last Saturday at the Beuys exhibition. Some visitors were visibly enjoying studying the posters and someone told me how much they liked looking at the Braunkreuz drawings.

One question raised was how did Beuys get started as an artist? It turned out that the questioner wished to know how his career was able to take off, not how did he become an artist in the first place. Interest was also evident in Beuys’ materials, specifically felt and why he chose to use grey felt so often in the work. “I like America and America likes me” – the piece where Beuys lived with a coyote in a gallery in New York – was another work that people were keen to talk about, evidence that it has a special place in people’s enthusiasm for Beuys.

One visitor, who told me that she had spent the last twenty-five years researching Beuys’ work, when approached with an invitation to come along to Speaker’s Corner questioned the validity of the idea of this event in relation to Beuys. She found it rather ‘peripheral’ to his oeuvre and saw little connection to Beuys’ own practices of encouraging dialogue amongst people, choosing to describe his Office for Direct Democracy, for example, as ‘educational lectures’. I wondered at this and was interested in her take on his approach, having always interpreted these particular Documenta happenings as much more about a process of exchange than as lectures. I disagreed with her about the relevance of the Speaker’s Corner aspect of the gallery interpretation programme, seeing it as a lively happening with the potential to stimulate debate. When I put this point of view across I was informed quite emphatically that “Beuys was a shaman!” and felt by this instruction rather shamed myself, as if I had completely missed the point. It was a difficult, if thought-provoking exchange.

Each and every encounter with another person can be an attempt at democratic living and deserves one’s best efforts.

Eventually, I have come to realise how hugely I have been affected in my own practice by Beuys’ ideas, whilst largely – because of my own mistrust of anything deemed mystical or spiritual – being able to ignore the shamanic aspects of his persona, whether real or projected onto him with hindsight by those who have been involved in the interpretation of his work. That this has been possible speaks volumes about the concentration of concepts operating within his practice and of the approachability of his work to such a wide range of people. These ideas have made me think further about the reception of an artist’s work and how this is beyond the control of that particular artist, particularly after their death, and beyond the control of those who keep the work alive through exhibitions, interpretation and its influence in their own practice.

Speaker’s Corner, which on Saturday took place on floor 2, was an intimate affair with an audience who drifted in and out and which was eventually added to by those coming out of the Beuys ‘in context’ talk. Jane Marriner, an artist and felt-maker spoke very knowledgeably about the history of wool, giving lots of additional fascinating insights into felt: for example that the expression ‘mad as a hatter’ comes from the poisoning effects of mercury upon hatters using it in the felt-making process. Jane spoke about the significance of hand-made processes in the spinning and weaving of wool in different cultures and how, with industrialisation much of this got lost but that people are always keen to try to recover these craft skills.

Jane struck a balance in what she said, pointing out that increased globalisation was a phenomenon that we had to work with and wished to distance herself from any suggestion of being a luddite. The latter part of the conversation saw us drawing our chairs closer together in order to hear each other better over the noise from the café, which had the effect of creating a special, intimate atmosphere, which I sensed everybody particularly enjoyed. The ‘corner’ aspect of Speakers’ Corner seemed more like the cosy corner of a room, where people gather, trusting in interested conversation and each other.

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Whilst walking around the gallery on Saturday talking with visitors, I was struck by the variety of the responses to Beuys and maybe that’s as it should be.  There were quite a few people familiar with the philosophy of his work and though I got the impression that for some, Beuys is Here felt like visiting a foreign land without a phrase book, still there were others who were intrigued enough to find their own way into his ideas.  When people wanted a definitive answer to what I feel to be the near impossible question “What is it about?”, my response was that this exhibition really forces me to think and that is what I think it is about.

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Thanks to those people who participated in the discussion in response to Martin Goldsmith’s presentation on Sunday.

Martin has documented Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park over many years. His aim, he said, was to represent the variety of the people participating in these events – speakers and crowd members. In particular he is interested in representing dialogue and democratic forms of interaction. He uses an older type of camera where you stare down into the viewfinder and this seems to be less confrontational for his subjects. He feels like he is part of the crowd, not a detached observer although he admits that the photographs are the result of a series of edits, including the moment he chooses what/who to shoot.

Some people who came to Martin’s talk had personal experiences of Speakers’ Corner and were taken there as children.

The conversation ranged quite widely. Points covered included:

• How Speakers’ Corner had changed over the years – discussions now seemed less serious, more a form of entertainment than serious political engagement.
• The origins of Speakers’ Corner seem to be connected with gallows and public executions. Crowds used to gather at Tyburn as a form of entertainment and to listen to the condemned person’s final words.
• Political positions were perhaps more polarised in the ’30s – now communities are atomised, people feel smaller in relation to the big issues. There is more freedom but paradoxically people feel less powerful. We used to do things collectively but now children are kept indoors and separate.
• We live in a surveillance society but new technologies also offer new possibilities for information-exchange and political action – e.g. use of twitter in Iran.
• Rights (free speech for example) are not just given – they need to be maintained. There needs to be a soap-box in every town.

Apologies for admissions: if you were add the discussion, please add the topics you remember. You are also welcome to comment if you weren’t at the discussion but are interested in the themes.

Thinking about Beuys, we could continue to discuss the relationship between art and politics and the nature of ‘genuine’ participation…

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Joseph Beuys at the De La Warr Pavilion

From 4 July – 27 September we will be showing the work of German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-86), as part of ARTIST ROOMS on tour with The Art Fund.

As part of our interpretation programme we are working with five artists to explore, discuss and interrogate Beuys’s work and ideas: Susan Diab, Sharon Haward, Kevin Graal, Bern O’Donoghue and Michaela Ross.

You can:

• Engage with our interactive Information Booth.
• Join one of our artist team for a personal perspective of the exhibition (alternate Saturdays at 2pm)
• Participate in the discussion in Speakers’ Corner (see below)

See our website for full details of events and activities. http://www.dlwp.com/
Weekly summaries of conversations and discussions generated by the exhibition will be posted here.

Speakers’ Corner, near London’s Marble Arch, is the spiritual home of the British democratic tradition of free public speech and soapbox oratory. During the exhibition Beuys Is Here at the De La Warr Pavilion, we will be creating our own Speakers’ Corner in recognition of Joseph Beuys’s use of dialogue and discussion as part of his work.

On Saturday afternoons at 3.30pm during the exhibition, you are invited to hear speakers from a variety of backgrounds and interests, inspired by the ideas of Joseph Beuys. The speakers will have the floor for 15 minutes then the discussion will open up. A full list of speakers will be available on our website.

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