Venice Diaries V: Joseph Beuys. Fine-limbed

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The image shows a sculpture in form of a female body by Joseph Beuys.
Joseph Beuys, Bleifrau (Lead Woman), 1949. © Joseph Beuys Estate / VG-Bildkunst, Bonn 2022 Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul. Photo: Tom Carter

Review
Joseph Beuys. Fine-limbed
April 20 – October 2, 2022
Palazzo Cini, Venice

A rarely seen Beuys, a pre-Beuys by times. All works in the exhibition Joseph Beuys: Fine-limbed at Palazzo Cini form part of private collections and have rarely been exhibited before. 

The deer as motif, brown and ochre tones. Fragile works on paper, heavy but smooth bronzes. One feels the touch, and body. 

Pencil, blood, iron chloride, milk, ink, turpentine. Lasceaux meets mechanical drawing, (wo)men meets machine. Venus of Willendorf meets heating rod. The female body as orbit, or machine. Encounter at Amazone (1969). Or in the Bathtub for a Heroine (1984).

The image shows the drawing of two female bodies in watercolor by Joseph Beuys.
Joseph Beuys, Zwei Frauen, 1955. © Joseph Beuys Estate / VG-Bildkunst, Bonn 2022 Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul. Photo: Ulrich Ghezzi.

As cliché as it sounds: these works possess another temporality. Of origin, i.e. having been created in the 1950s & 1960s but referring to the prehistoric. And of looking – because time is surpassed in their reception.

Hare and angels, Turner, Picasso, Venice – and Beuys. 
[The Konterganchild and Music, 1963
Roses, 1957
Young elk above the old miller’s house/The Bear Constellation, 1961-1963
Untitled, c. 1960]

These works carry essentiality; and pure gesture as in the first gesture.

The image shows a sculpture by Joseph Beuys.
Joseph Beuys, Ofen (1950) mit Torso (1948), 1948 – 1950. © Joseph Beuys Estate / VG-Bildkunst, Bonn 2022 Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates.

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