Athenian Moon Owl

1960s

Forms the idea of “social sculpture”

Drawing on Novalis and Schiller and on Rudolf Steiner's ideas of social threefolding, Beuys developed the concept of social sculpture: society as a whole is one great work of art to which everyone can contribute creatively (“everyone is an artist”).

27 June 1968 – 6 October 1968

Exhibition: 4. documenta

August 1970

The 1970 Edinburgh Festival: “Arena” and “The Pack”

In August 1970, at the Edinburgh International Festival, Beuys, with Günther Uecker, Blinky Palermo, Robert Filliou and other Düsseldorf artists, showed the retrospective “Arena” and the installation “The Pack” and performed “Celtic Kinloch Rannoch”, using a blackboard for the first time; a year later he developed the action in Basel as “Celtic+”.

October 1972

Dismissed from the Düsseldorf Academy

Beuys abolished entry requirements to his class, and this policy caused friction; in 1972 he found 142 rejected applicants whom he wished to take on and, with 16 students, occupied the academy's offices. The relationship became irreconcilable and in October he was dismissed; he refused to accept the dismissal, which provoked a wave of protests from students, artists and critics.

1974

Founds the Free International University

Together with Heinrich Böll, Beuys opened an international-level university where anyone could study — with no age limits and no entrance competition.

1979

The retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum

In 1979 the only major retrospective of Beuys's work organised in his lifetime opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York; it has been described as a “lightning rod for American criticism”, provoking powerful and polemical responses.