Joseph Beuys is one of the most legendary figures of twentieth century art; his work and ideas continue to impact on artists today. An enigmatic, self-styled 'shaman' who embraced radically democratic artistic and political ideas, he has attained almost mythical status. This reader brings together the crucial texts on Beuys to look at the most contentious reception ever accorded a postwar artis…
At the height of the Cold War, art produced in divided Germany contested the cultural demarcation of East and West. Here Claudia Mesch shows how a wide group of artists struggled to take visual art beyond the crude separations of the 'Iron Curtain', and to transcend the first global cultural divide of the twentieth century. Artists in Berlin produced artworks-including painting, performance and…