The End of the Twentieth Century (German : Das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts) is a monumental installation by the German artist Joseph Beuys from 1983, at the Hamburger Bahnhof, in Berlin.
It consists of large, oblong pieces of basalt, all of which have a conical hole bored into them at one end. In these holes smaller cones of rock have been placed, lined with clay and felt. The rocks evoke bones or corpses, and in their random alignment could produce the sensation in a viewer that "the state of the world is beyond control". [1] This inevitably brings to mind Beuys' experiences during World War II, in which he served as a Luftwaffe pilot and many of his family members were killed. [1] However, the materials of clay and felt symbolize potential growth and "suggest the possibility of new life emerging at the end of a dark century". [2] The project's theme of renewal is closely associated with the project 7000 Oaks , in which basalt stones were paired with oak trees. The impermanence of the materials Beuys chose for the installation has presented problems for conservators. [3]
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a public in a fine art context in an interdisciplinary mode. Also known as artistic action, it has been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an important and fundamental role in 20th century avant-garde art.
Felt is a textile that is produced by matting, condensing, and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp–based rayon. Blended fibers are also common. Natural fiber felt has special properties that allow it to be used for a wide variety of purposes. It is "fire-retardant and self-extinguishing; it dampens vibration and absorbs sound; and it can hold large amounts of fluid without feeling wet..."
Joseph Heinrich Beuys was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and, with Heinrich Böll, Johannes Stüttgen, Caroline Tisdall, Robert McDowell, and Enrico Wolleb, created the Free International University for Creativity & Interdisciplinary Research (FIU). He previously in his talks and performances also formed The Party for Animals and The Organisation for Direct Democracy. He was a member of a Dadaist art movement Fluxus and singularly inspirational in developing of Performance Art, called Kunst Aktionen, alongside Wiener Aktionismus that Allan Kaprow and Carolee Schneemann termed Art Happenings. Today, internationally, the largest performance art group is BBeyond in Belfast, led by Alastair MacLennan who knew Beuys and like many adapts Beuys's ethos.
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters traditionally worked with natural wood and did rougher work such as framing, but today many other materials are also used and sometimes the finer trades of cabinetmaking and furniture building are considered carpentry. In the United States, 98.5% of carpenters are male, and it was the fourth most male-dominated occupation in the country in 1999. In 2006 in the United States, there were about 1.5 million carpentry positions. Carpenters are usually the first tradesmen on a job and the last to leave. Carpenters normally framed post-and-beam buildings until the end of the 19th century; now this old-fashioned carpentry is called timber framing. Carpenters learn this trade by being employed through an apprenticeship training—normally four years—and qualify by successfully completing that country's competence test in places such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa. It is also common that the skill can be learned by gaining work experience other than a formal training program, which may be the case in many places.
Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video are described as postmodern.
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings and other structures, like bridges. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacturing of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up of habitats and structures including homes.
The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the art collection of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Düsseldorf. United by this institution are three different exhibition venues: the K20 at Grabbeplatz, the K21 in the Ständehaus, and the Schmela Haus. The Kunstsammlung was founded in 1961 by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia as a foundation under private law for the purpose of displaying the art collection and expanding it through new acquisitions.
The Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein is a state art museum in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The building by the Swiss architects Meinrad Morger, Heinrich Degelo and Christian Kerez was completed in November 2000. The museum is a collection of international modern and contemporary art and the national art collection of the Principality of Liechtenstein. In 2015, the new Hilti Art Foundation exhibition building was added to the Kunstmuseum.
Imi Knoebel is a German artist. Knoebel is known for his minimalist, abstract painting and sculpture. The "Messerschnitt" or "knife cuts," is a recurring technique he employs, along with his regular use of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Mumok is a museum in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria.
The Brandhorst Museum was opened in Munich on 21 May 2009. It displays about 200 exhibits from the modern art collection of the heirs of the Henkel trust Udo and Anette Brandhorst. In 2009 the Brandhorst Collection comprises more than 700 works.
Social sculpture is a phrase used to describe an expanded concept of art that was invented by the artist and founding member of the German Green Party, Joseph Beuys. Beuys created the term "social sculpture" to embody his understanding of art's potential to transform society. As a work of art, a social sculpture includes human activity that strives to structure and shape society or the environment. The central idea of a social sculptor is an artist who creates structures in society using language, thoughts, actions, and objects.
7000 Oaks – City Forestation Instead of City Administration is a work of land art by the German artist Joseph Beuys. It was first publicly presented in 1982 at documenta 7.
Kirill Preobrazhenskiy is Russian artist, participant of Documenta 12. Works mainly with video and installations.
Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (HLMD) is a large multidisciplinary museum in Darmstadt, Germany. The museum exhibits Rembrandt, Beuys, a primeval horse and a mastodon under the slogan "The whole world under one roof". As one of the oldest public museums in Germany, it has c. 80,000 visitors every year and a collection size of 1.35 million objects. Since 2019, Martin Faass has been director of the museum. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Kassel and Wiesbaden. Similar institutions in Europe are the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Modern sculpture is generally considered to have begun with the work of Auguste Rodin, who is seen as the progenitor of modern sculpture. While Rodin did not set out to rebel against the past, he created a new way of building his works. He "dissolved the hard outline of contemporary Neo-Greek academicism, and thereby created a vital synthesis of opacity and transparency, volume and void". Along with a few other artists in the late 19th century who experimented with new artistic visions in sculpture like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, Rodin invented a radical new approach in the creation of sculpture. Modern sculpture, along with all modern art, "arose as part of Western society's attempt to come to terms with the urban, industrial and secular society that emerged during the nineteenth century".
Sonja Alhäuser is a German artist.
Christel Dillbohner is a German artist whose installations, paintings, and assemblages are deeply involved with the relationship between personal and cultural memory and the human struggle to live in threatened environments.
I Like America and America Likes Me, also known as Coyote, was a 1974 performance by conceptual artist Joseph Beuys.
Dia Chelsea is an art museum in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City and is operated by Dia Art Foundation. Opened in 1987 at 548 West 22nd Street as the Dia Center for the Arts, Dia Chelsea has since moved across the street to a series of connected buildings now consolidated at 537 West 22nd Street. It is one of the locations and sites the Dia Art Foundation manages. The Museum hosts longterm but temporary exhibitions dedicated to one or two artists at a time as well as associated artistic and educational programing.