Masters let’s meet Joseph Beuys
100 years since his birth
Lectures, Performances, Videos, Meetings and Testimonies.
Curated by Manuela Gandini and Susanna Schoenberg.
May 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, at 9pm – live streaming on Teatro Out Off Youtube and Facebook channels.
Exhibition: Der Fehler fängt schon an, wenn einer sich anschickt Keilrahmen und Leinwand zu kaufen.
Curated by Patrizio Peterlini. Artworks from the Luigi Bonotto Collection.
From May 11th until December 19th 2021.
After “Milanesi Eccellenti (Excellent Milaneses), Gianni Sassi and Franco Quadri”, among the masters that Teatro Out Off has looked at in its doing and experimenting there is Joseph Beuys, whose centenary falls in 2021. An important opportunity to tell the complex experience of this German artist who revolutionized the concept of art by deeply linking it to the expression of human life and the relationship with nature. We want the materials collected in the various initiatives conceived for the project (videos, performances, conferences, exhibition) to be connected to current events and to focus on the decisive moment that our planet is facing because of climate change, economic crises and the emergence of the pandemic. Through all his work, Beuys places the human being at the center of a necessary relationship with nature, triggering a dialogue that leads to reflections and elaborations that transcend art to become philosophical and political thought. From 1972 to 1985 in Bolognano, Abruzzo, the artist carried out – in the estate of Lucrezia De Domizio Durini and her husband Buby Durini (his eternal supporters) – the impressive operation “Defense of Nature” which mainly consisted in the planting of 7000 trees of different species (some endangered) and in a series of important international meetings.
The Out Off Theater presents two initiatives: from May 11th to May 15th at 9pm there will be 5 live streaming events, on the channels of Teatro Out Off, with performances, meetings, readings, projections that will explore the different areas of Joseph Beuys’ thought. Manuela Gandini (art critic and lecturer at NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in its Milan office), and Susanna Schoenberg (filmmaker, media, performance artist and lecturer at the Düsseldorf Academy) curated the program of events.
From May 11th to December 19th the exhibition “Der Fehler fängt schon an, wenn einer sich anschickt Keilrahmen und Leinwand zu kaufen” curated by Patrizio Peterlini. The exhibition, set up in the spaces of Teatro Out Off, is a selection of editions and posters from the Luigi Bonotto Collection.
PROGRAM OF THE STREAMING EVENTS
11.05 THE HUMAN BEING and the REVOLUTION of IDEAS / Der Mensch und die Revolution der Ideen
Si affronteranno i temi beuysiani legati alla condizione umana contemporanea della crisi, della malattia globale, della cura e del risveglio fisico e spirituale attraverso un concreto cambio di paradigma e la riattivazione del proprio sé creativo.
Flavio Bonetti/ Michele Bonuomo/ Elisabetta Pagella/ Alessandro Bergonzoni/ Salvatore Cristofaro/ Elena Arvigo/ Jana Jess/ Giulia Niccolai/ Karin Harrasser/ Christina Lammer/ Alessandra Moretto/ Coreografia Studenti Accademia di Brera.
12.05 THE INTELLIGENCE of NON-HUMAN REIGNS / Die Intelligenz nicht-humaner Welten.
Il focus sarà sull’aspetto ecologico dell’attività beuysana: analisi, proposte, minacce naturali, esperienze artistiche contemporanee legate alla necessità di ricostruire un rapporto di solidarietà con i regni animale, vegetale, minerale.
Giulia Frezzato/ Lome Lorenzo Menguzzato/Peppe Morra/ Vittoria Mascellaro/ delleAli Teatro/ Elena Arvigo/ Hambibleibt/ Stefano Boeri/ Daria Nazarenko/ / Kuai Shen/ Evamaria Schaller/ Patrizio Peterlini.
13.05 SOCIAL PLASTIC / Soziale Plastik
Si analizza la potenza trasformativa dell’arte sulla collettività e il suo allargamento concettuale per il quale viene indicata in ogni uomo (e in ogni vivente) la propria incontrovertibile facoltà creativa.
Andrea Contin/ Rachele Adda/ Elena Arvigo/ Irina Yang/ Johanne Stüttgen/ Artway of Thinking/ Sofia Caprioglio/ Carmen Losmann/ Pierangelo Dacrema/ Marzia Migliora/ Marco Scotini/ Arahmaiani Feisal.
14.05 DEMOCRACY and PARTICIPATION / Demokratie und Teilhabe
Dal licenziamento dall’Accademia di Düsseldorf, all’impegno nella fondazione del partito dei Verdi, sino alla realizzazione della FIU (Free International University) sarà indagata la sfera politica di Beuys.
Antonio Syxty/ Italo Tomassoni/ Elena Arvigo/ Rainer Rappman/ Francesco Scalas/ Michelangelo Pistoletto/ Sergio Racanati/ Ilaria Bellotti/ Ute Reeh/ Vittoria Mascellaro/ Kompostistische Internationale und Wang Haiqing.
15.05 LIFE = ART / Leben = Kunst
In questa puntata è messo in evidenza l’assioma beuysiano della vita come arte e arte come vita, concetto che ha caratterizzato la sua intera esistenza.
Michelangelo Jr Gandini/ Hans Urlich Reck/ Elena Arvigo/ Tonia Paladini/ Piero Gilardi/ Liora Epstein/ Hans Peter Riegel/ Francesca Pasini/ Piero Gilardi/ Paola Pietronave/ Chiara Camoni.
And with the participation of the students of Susanna Schoenberg from the Düsseldorf Academy, the students of Romano Gasparotti of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the students of Manuela Gandini from the Milan campus of NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti.
We conceived the five events as a live workshop that provides for the intergenerational succession of artists, performers, theorists, doctors, poets, critics, and farmers with whom there will be talks, debates, performances, videos, urban “forays”, and Facebook, Zoom and Instagram connections. Beuys’s biographical aspect that made him so influential, mythical and unlikely, will be treated on a par with his holistic thinking that has touched every area of life: medicine, spirituality, economy, education, politics, history, relationship with the natural kingdoms. A multi-voiced portrait of Beuys as well as a polyphony which sees the contribution of Italian, German and international guests will be created.
The maieutic aspect of his teaching as a fundamental part of his art will have a prominent place. In fact, we will connect with the Düsseldorf Academy, where the Master taught and from which he was dismissed for his libertarian and inclusive methods, involving the students of the institute itself and those of the Brera and NABA Academies to understand how Beuys “seeds” sprouted.
The streaming events will be made through the video direction of Stefano Sgarella coordinated by Mino Bertoldo and Lorenzo Loris.
To promote these initiatives and encourage participation, in collaboration with the association of via Mac Mahon VMMD and NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, on April 24th from 10am to 13am Manuela Gandini’s students at NABA (Rachele Adda, Sofia Caprioglio, Salvatore Cristofaro, Giulia Frezzato, Vittoria Mascellaro, Elisabetta Pagella, Tonia Paladini, Paola Pietronave, Francesco Scalas) will “narrate” Beuys in the shops and along Mac Mahon road. On May 12th at 6 pm, the day of Beuys’ birth, there will be readings by Beuys with the actress Giulia Amato and the planting of an oak tree in the park of Mac Mahon road. The ceremony, citing the work “7000 oaks” by Joseph Beuys presented at “documenta VII” in Kassel in 1982, wants to symbolize the relationship between art and nature which stands at the center of the German master’s thought. The initiative is carried out with Municipality 8, the association of Mac Mahon road VMMD and ItaliaNostra – Centro Forestazione Urbana.
THE EXHIBITION (May 11th > December 19th – admission by reservation)
Der Fehler fängt schon an, wenn einer sich anschickt Keilrahmen und Leinwand zu kaufen.
Exhibition curated by Patrizio Peterlini – Artworks and documents from the Luigi Bonotto Collection.
The exhibition takes its title from the famous poster by Beuys from 1985: “Things start to go wrong when someone goes to buy a frame and a canvas”. A declaration of radical break with the world of traditional art which testifies the choice of the German master to operate in an anthropological dimension for the creation of what he called a social sculpture. For this reason, the exhibition presents a selection of editions and posters from the Luigi Bonotto Collection with particular reference to three thematic areas:
- “I like America and America likes me”, with the presentation of the full video of the performance of 1974
- “Defense of Nature” important operation carried out by the German artist during the last fifteen years of his life. Some actions also took place in Italy, in Bolognano, a mountain village in the Abruzzo region.
- The founding of the Free International University and its political commitment to one Direct Democracy.
The Luigi Bonotto Collection was born from Luigi Bonotto’s frequentation with artists of the Fluxus movement and from the Concrete, Visual, Sound, Performative and Electronic Poetry that he welcomed from the early seventies to Molvena, in his textile company and in the house where he lived. In over forty years of activity, the Collection has grown, now preserving over 20,000 documents, often donated by the artists themselves. A unique corpus for the study of relationships and collaborations developed over the years between artists. The Collection is located within the 10,000 meters of Bonotto Spa (offices, production lines, warehouses) creating a strong conceptual and physical link between art and industry. The digitization of all documents, making them freely available online, has transformed it into an international reference point for scholars and enthusiasts.
