Joseph Beuys Quotes

Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and inform our lives

To make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the science of freedom.

I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression. I say not that art has already realized this, on the contrary, and because it has not, it has to be developed as a weapon, at first there are radical levels, then you can speak about special details.

Art alone makes life possible - this is how radically I should like to formulate it. I would say that without art man is inconceivable in physiological terms... Even the act of peeling a potato can be an artistic act if it is consciously done.

Art is not there simply to be understood. ... It is more the sense of an indication or suggestion.

A total work of art is only possible in the context of the whole of society. Everyone will be a necessary co-creator of a social architecture, and, so long as anyone cannot participate, the ideal form of democracy has not been reached. Whether people are artists, assemblers of machines or nurses, it is a matter of participating in the whole.

Every human being is an artist

Art can no longer be art today if it does not reach into the heart of our present culture and work transformatively within it that is, an art which cannot mould society — and through this naturally operate upon the core questions of our society — is not art.

Art for me is the science of freedom.

For instance, in places like universities, where everyone speaks so rationally, it is necessary for a kind of enchanter to appear.

Where would I have ended up if I had been intelligent?

To be a teacher is my greatest work of art.

Truth must be found in reality, not systems.

Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART.

I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time. The oak is especially so because it is a slowly growing tree with a kind of really solid heartwood. It has always been a form of sculpture, a symbol for this planet.

I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time.