JOSEPH BEUYS (GERMAN 1921-1986)
Nr. 5 Joseph Beuys: Demokratie ist lustig,1973
offset lithograph and pen on a postcard
10.5 x 14.9 cm (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.)
unframed
signed center front

PROVENANCE
John Gibson Gallery
Acquired from the above by the present owner

LOT NOTES
Joseph Beuys was a revolutionary artist, performer and theorist of the post-war era, who viewed art as a vehicle for social change and transformation. He is mostly associated with Fluxus movement. Beuys produced assemblages, installations, performances, prints, and drawings, among other media in which he reflected on humanism, sociology and anthroposophy. Beuys participated in the Venice Biennale and Documenta multiple times, and his works are in the collections of Harvard Art Museum, Moderna Museet, Tate Modern, the Kunsthalle Bern, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art and other.
The postcard is a signed copy of the original silk screen print. On both Beuys inscribed “Demokratie ist lustig" (Democracy is Merry). The postcard depicts Beuys being escorted from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf after he organized a sit-in protest with hist students against the institution’s limiting and excluding admission policies.