Sale: 519 / Post War / Cont. Art II, June 19. 2021 in Munich Lot 414

 

414
Joseph Beuys
Hasenblut, 1972.
Collage. Plastic bag with hare's blood, stamp
Estimate:
€ 2,000 / $ 2,140
Sold:
€ 5,000 / $ 5,350

(incl. surcharge)
Hasenblut. 1972.
Collage. Plastic bag with hare's blood, stamped and mounted on an India ink drawing with an adhesive plaster.
Signed, dated and titled "Hasenblut (Hare's blood)" on verso of the board. Consistently framed with adhesive plaster on grayish board under glass. 40.5 x 40.5 cm (15.9 x 15.9 in)[EH].

• "The hare is my animal" (quote from Joseph Beuys in: M. Angerbauer, Beuys-Kompass, p. 224).
• The hare plays a key role in many of Beuys' works and actions.
• A hare adorned the hood of Joseph Beuys’ Bentley S1.
• Hare blood stands for agility while the band-aid stands for fragility
.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Germany (obtained directly from the artist).

EXHIBITION: Joseph Beuys: Wo ist Element 3?, Ketterer Kunst, Berlin, March 26 – May 22, 2021.

The wedge-shaped foil bag with hare‘s blood was originally created for the special edition of the photo book "aus Düsseldorf Art Scene“ (from Düsseldorf Art Scene) in 1971 by Lothar Wolleh, in which, along with other artist portraits, the photograph of Beuys shot at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1971 was released for the first time. The hare is so to speak Beuys' heraldic animal and played a central role in several spectacular actions. For the first time at the Düsseldorf Art Academy as part of a Fluxus Festival in the "Scottish Symphony 1st Movement" campaign in 1963, then as the main character in the legendary campaign "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare"at Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf in 1965. For Beuys, the hare was all about the powers of the blood ".. deeper, it is associated with women, with birth, also with the period, generally with all chemical transformations of the blood ..". The present version of the plastic bag filled with hare‘s blood differs from the regular multiple in terms of the cardboard, which is treated as a drawing. The importance Beuys attached to this work is underlined by the fact that he included it in his “The secret block for a secret person in Ireland”.



414
Joseph Beuys
Hasenblut, 1972.
Collage. Plastic bag with hare's blood, stamp
Estimate:
€ 2,000 / $ 2,140
Sold:
€ 5,000 / $ 5,350

(incl. surcharge)