History:
Joseph Beuys believed art to be a means of realizing a social utopia. Envisioning the role of the artist as akin to that of a shaman, Beuys developed a self-defined practice of “social sculpture,” an art form based largely on political involvement and environmental concerns. To this end, he developed a synthetic yet personal symbolic vocabulary to articulate his concern for cultural change.
Beuys adjusted Arena to its exhibition sites, condensing or expanding it as space permitted. In the last installation supervised by the artist, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1979, he propped the panels against a wall in three piles, massing them into what he called a Fond—a battery, a device for sending, storing, and receiving energy.
Cherishing its self-contained structure and implicit promise of transformation, Beuys deployed the concept of the Fond throughout his oeuvre. For him, communication through art meant the interchange of energies. In Brasilienfond (Brazilian Fond), Fond III/3, and Fond IV/4 (all 1979), he used piles of felt and stacks of metal, materials that carried symbolic resonance for him. Like the fat in Arena, felt symbolized protective insulation, while metals implied transmission: copper being particularly conductive, iron suggesting rootedness to the earth.
Joseph Beuys believed art to be a means of realizing a social utopia. Envisioning the role of the artist as akin to that of a shaman, Beuys developed a self-defined practice of “social sculpture,” an art form based largely on political involvement and environmental concerns. To this end, he developed a synthetic yet personal symbolic vocabulary to articulate his concern for cultural change.
Beuys adjusted Arena to its exhibition sites, condensing or expanding it as space permitted. In the last installation supervised by the artist, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1979, he propped the panels against a wall in three piles, massing them into what he called a Fond—a battery, a device for sending, storing, and receiving energy.
Cherishing its self-contained structure and implicit promise of transformation, Beuys deployed the concept of the Fond throughout his oeuvre. For him, communication through art meant the interchange of energies. In Brasilienfond (Brazilian Fond), Fond III/3, and Fond IV/4 (all 1979), he used piles of felt and stacks of metal, materials that carried symbolic resonance for him. Like the fat in Arena, felt symbolized protective insulation, while metals implied transmission: copper being particularly conductive, iron suggesting rootedness to the earth.
Problem High School:
1. Find the cost to reconstruct the Fond III/3 and Fond IV/4 pieces using current felt and copper prices.
2. Find the minimum area needed to recreate the pieces.
1. Find the cost to reconstruct the Fond III/3 and Fond IV/4 pieces using current felt and copper prices.
2. Find the minimum area needed to recreate the pieces.
Joseph Beuys Worksheet | |
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