The exhibition will open on the DÜSSELDORF COLOGNE OPEN GALLERIES weekend:
Friday, 4 September 2020, 11am-8pm
Saturday, 5 September 2020, 11am-8pm
Sunday, 6 September 2020, 11am-6pm
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 2-6pm, Sat noon-5pm and by appointment.
We are looking forward to your visit under observance of
the distance and hygiene rules for protection against COVID-19.
In anticipation of Beuys‘s 2021 centenary, Galerie Thomas Zander is delighted to present the photo-environment Energy Plan Joseph Beuys,
a unique installation of 67 vintage Cibachrome prints by Werner Krüger.
Joseph Beuys is one of the most outstanding and influential artists of
the 20th century. Between 1972 and 1979 Krüger accompanied him to
actions and exhibitions for his documentary Joseph Beuys. Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler (Everyone
is an artist). The film vividly conveys Beuys‘s extended definition of
art as a participatory process of shaping society. During the filming
Werner Krüger created his powerful photographs
of Beuys‘s cosmos of works. Beuys encouraged the production of the
images selected by himself and Krüger, and he initiated an exhibition of
the environment alongside his show of drawings at Kunsthalle Bielefeld
in 1980. On this occasion, Beuys also signed
a certain number of the prints. In the images of Krüger’s large-scale
installation, the characteristic materials fat, copper, felt, and honey
appear almost three-dimensional in their deep and glowing colours. A mystical black background surrounds what
seems like experimental arrangements of utensils, glasses, tools, the
body of Christ and the cross, a magnet next to an electric hotplate,
dead bees. All of these objects store, conduct, or transform energy and
bear a patina of organic and chemical transformations
between form and shapelessness, they are dried, solidified, melted, or
covered in dust. Some of the objects are part of Block Beuys, the largest complex of works from 1949 to 1972, among them Stuhl mit Fett or Filz-TV III. The photographs also feature elements from the major work Barraque d’dull odde. Arbeitsplatz eines Wissenschaftlers/Künstlers.
The title of the photo-environment is borrowed from Beuys‘s vocabulary
and references, for example, the artist’s action during his first trip
to the USA in 1974, Energy Plan for the Western Man.
The “Energy Plan” according to Beuys implies metaphysical aspects as
well as spiritual energies as a driving force for art and processes of
societal evolution. In this context the exhibition also showcases Beuys‘s original programmatic panel that postulates: Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler – Make the Secrets Productive (1977).
A new catalogue of the photo-environment by Werner Krüger has been
published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König.
Images: © Werner Krüger, Cologne
