PLIGHT Element

Joseph Beuys was Germany’s leading post-war performance artist and sculptor. His artistic practice was grounded in humanism, social and political philosophy and myth and ritual. Beuys served as a German fighter pilot during the Second World War. He was badly injured when his plane was shot down in Crimea in 1943, spending twelve days unconscious in a field hospital. Years later he drew on his memories and subconscious to recount a tale of miraculous survival, whereby he was found by a group of nomadic Tartars, who brought him back from the brink of death by wrapping him in fat and felt.  While the story is now known to be fictional, it nonetheless illuminates the associations these two elemental materials had for Beuys – fat and/or felt featured in many works by the artist.

Plight Element was a component of a sculptural installation Joseph Beuys made at Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London, just months before his death. He lined the walls and the ceiling of the two gallery spaces with padded felt columns; in total there were forty-three ’elements’, each containing seven columns of felt. A grand piano, a blackboard with a blank music stave, and a fertility thermometer were positioned in the space. The overall effect was a warm sound-proof environment – womb-like or tomb-like – which could evoke thoughts of isolation, insulation, entrapment or rebirth.

Julie Robinson, Senior Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs