Wolfgang Zumdick: Death Keeps Me Awake – J. Beuys and R. Steiner – Foundations of their Thought

Robert Nelson, THE AGE About this book Few people are indifferent to Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner – although it is decades since their death. One is a political clown and artistic agitator, the other an eccentric and esoteric philosopher. This is a judgement that many people still hold fast. Death Keeps Me Awake does not only show the intimate connection between Joseph Beuys’s and Rudolf Steiner’s thought. It also reveals the internal consistency and depth of their thinking, their determination and seriousness, and this, despite all the humour apparent in many of their works and statements. This book shows clearly that they attempt nothing less than to change the world.

Death Keeps Me Awake

“A German scholar Wolfgang Zumdick has written a remarkable book on the parallel between Steiner and Beuys”

Wolfgang Zumdick

art architecture design research

Death Keeps Me Awake Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner Foundations of their Thought

AADR publishes innovative artistic, creative and historical research in art, architecture, design and related fields.

Dr Wolfgang Zumdick is an author, philosopher, curator and Joseph Beuys – Social Sculpture specialist, working internationally. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from RWTH Aachen, has curated several Joseph Beuys and social sculpture exhibitions and is author of numerous publications on the history of philosophy and on 20th century art and philosophy, with a specific focus on Joseph Beuys. From 1996 –1998 he was a scholarship holder at the Laurenz Haus Foundation, Basel. He is a core member of the Social Sculpture Research Unit and a Senior Lecturer in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes University, in Oxford, England. He has been guest lecturer at numerous universities internationally. Death Keeps Me Awake is the first major publication in English on the epistemological frameworks in Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner’s work.

ISBN 978-3-88778-381-5

Wolfgang Zumdick

About the author

Wolfgang Zumdick

Death Keeps Me Awake

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The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografi e; detailed bibliographic information is available on the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de

Cover images: Image: Rudolf Steiner, Blackboard drawing, 19.10.1923 © Rudolf Steiner Archiv, Dornach Image: Joseph Beuys, from the action „Der Chef The Chief“, 1964 © Jürgen Müller Schneck, Berlin.

Wolfgang Zumdick Death Keeps Me Awake Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner – Foundations of their Thought Translated by Shelley Sacks

© Copyright 2013 by Spurbuchverlag, Am Eichenhügel 4, 96148 Baunach, Germany All rights of the english translation reserved.

English publication © by Spurbuchverlag published in license agreement with Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel 1. print run 2013 First published in German 1995 Über das Denken bei Joseph Beuys und Rudolf Steiner, © Wiese Verlag, Basel

No part of the work must in any mode (print, photocopy, microfi lm, CD or any other process) be reproduced nor – by application of electronic systems – processed, manifolded nor broadcast without approval of the copyright holder.

AADR – Art, Architecture and Design Research publishes research with an emphasis on the relationship between critical theory and creative practice.

AADR series editor: Rochus Urban Hinkel Production: pth-mediaberatung GmbH, Würzburg Cover design and Layout: Reinert & Partner, Klaus Lutsch, Munich ISBN 978-3-88778-381-5 For further information on Spurbuchverlag and AADR visit our website www.spurbuch.de.

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Wolfgang Zumdick

Death Keeps Me Awake Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner Foundations of their Thought

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Question to Beuys: “[…] if man is a god, why does he face the problem of death? How does he deal with it?”

“Because he accepts death as the methodology of creation. Because he needs it. Because he has a fundamental understanding that without death he would not be able to live consciously. If he was only concerned with life, he might as well be a piece of seaweed. He is however concerned with death, and therefore with spirit, with form. If I hit my head against a hard edge, I wake up. In other words, death keeps me awake.”

Joseph Beuys

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Table of Contents

Foreword – 10 Ian George

Background to the English translation David Thomas

Translation Keeps Me Awake Shelley Sacks

– 12

– 14

Preface to the English publication Wolfgang Zumdick

– 19

Introduction – 24 Wolfgang Zumdick

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Table of Contents

First Book – On the Magnitude of Thought Introduction

– 29

1. The “Philosophy of Freedom” – Rudolf Steiner’s Epistemology

31

The Epistemological Rationale – 33 The reason for a “Philosophy of Freedom” – and its relation to other works by Rudolf Steiner – 36 Summary – 38 2. “To perform the Wonder of Things” – 39 Microcosm and Macrocosm – Steiner’s Model of the Connections between these Worlds Microcosm – 40 Macrocosm – 45 Angels – 45 3. The Higher Forms of Thought – Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition

48

Imagination – 49 Inspiration – 53 Intuition – 59 Moral Intuition – 59 The I-In-Itself – 60 Will – 61 The Higher I-In-Itself – 63 Summary – 64 4. “A Day in the Life of Brahma” – 66 World History as a History of the Human Being First Epoch: The Physical Development of the World – Saturn, Sun, Moon, the Development of the Earth – 68 Saturn [Fire] – 69 Sun [Air] – 70 Moon [Water] – 70 Earth [Earth] – 70 An Aside: World Genesis as a Cyclical Process – 74 Second Epoch: The Development of Psyche in the World – Fourth Aeon: Earth Paradise – 76 The Fall from Grace – 76 Christ – 80

– 75

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Table of Contents

Third Epoch: The Spiritual Development of the Earth – The Later Phases of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan – 80 Materialism – 80 Resurrection – 82 5. Concluding Remarks –

83

Second Book – Revolution of the Concepts Introduction

– 91

1. How does Beuys work with Steiner’s ‘Philosophy of Freedom’? – 2. [R]Evolution –

94

100

Cultures of Inspiration – 100 Secularisation – 105 Plato – 106 Aristotle – 108 Kant – 111 Christianity – 114 The City of the Sun – 117 3. “I hereby resign from art” – 122 Joseph Beuys and the Expanded Concept of Art 4. Plastic Theory and Social Sculpture – Afterword –

130

137

Appendix How is the Spiritual perceived in an Artwork –

140

Inspirations: On the Development of an Artwork in Music, Poetry and Visual Form – 140 The Receiver as Creator – 145 The Spiritual in Art: Up and Down – 155 Complete Picture Credits – Quoted Literature – Notes –

159

163

170

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My dear Herr Schradi There are still about 1000 unanswered things awaiting me. So, please forgive me for this response not being deeper. Your words have touched me deeply, linking me with the name of Rudolf Steiner. Since my childhood I have repeatedly thought about him, because I know I made an agreement with him to remove the alienation and mistrust that people have concerning the supersensible – and that I would do this in my own way.

In the sphere of political thinking, the field in which I work everyday, it is necessary for the threefold principal to become a reality as quickly as possible.

The [threefold] idea must be found within and drawn out of humanity, since it is there in everyone on all different levels. But human beings must come to this understanding for themselves. Steiner’s great achievement is that he did not ‘invent’ anything; out of his infinitely heightened perception he [simply!] brought to the fore what humans long for – even if they are still unaware of it.

Cautiousness, indirectness, covertness, ‘anti-techniques’ often are my means too; not flooding people with an ‘anthroposophic museum’. For very many people, myself included, have had rather unconvincing, not to say terrible experiences with this [anthroposophic] ‘society’. And I am only too aware of the mistrust, even the disgust of so many.

Where this mistrust has entered to the slightest degree, it is all too easy to confuse things and to throw out the precious with the worthless. But then you become blind to the only viable path.

With warm regards, yours truly, Joseph Beuys1

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Foreword Ian George

Having discovered Joseph Beuys and reading Rudolf Steiner extensively before mounting the exhibition Joseph Beuys/ Rudolf Steiner, Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition with the National Gallery of Victoria in 2007 I began to understand something of the deep connection between Steiner and Beuys. In the process I also became aware how little of this connection was documented or explored in the literature on Beuys available to an English speaking audience.

Dr. Zumdick was invited by the National Gallery of Victoria to participate in the symposium related to the exhibition.

Through his involvement I discovered the existence of Wolfgang Zumdick’s book, ‘Der Tod hält mich wach’, Death keeps me awake.

My interest in assisting RMIT University to publish Wolfgang’s book in English is born of the view that to understand Beuys in depth one needs also to properly understand the influence of Steiner in his work, and moreover that this is a profound connection that in itself needs to be understood.

Beuys once considered a career in science but changed to art. I think he would be interested, perhaps even amused, by recent developments in these areas. Certainly his art practice often took the form of a laboratory, and not only his performances and actions but his social process works as well.

Beuys was preoccupied with “energy”. One might argue that he was exploring the same

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Foreword

energy or force field as the nuclear physicists at the CERN Laboratories near Geneva in Switzerland. They are working with the Higgs Field and now believe they have discovered the Higgs Boson – “the God Particle”.

The whole question of material versus immaterial and what it comprises is a significant question in academic circles today. It is now an often held view that most, if not all matter is regulated by a common “energy”.

Perhaps science and art are rediscovering each other; something that Steiner had called for at the turn of the 20th century.

Beuys took up the idea of a symbiotic world and built on Steiner’s understanding of how a new ‘social art’ and new kinds of thinking might come about.

Frustrated in my explorations by the lack of English material on their radical insights and proposals, I realized through discussions with Wolfgang Zumdick that the book he had written, first as his doctoral thesis, might well fill this gap. It was a book that I myself really wanted to read.

I hope this book, now in English, will provide a basis to explore such important questions whilst enabling a better understanding of the work of these two individuals and their shared path. Just as Steiner’s understandings nourished Beuys, this book will hopefully nourish all those traveling and exploring this shared path through different disciplines and fields.

Ian George, Social Sculpture Forum, Melbourne

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Background to the English translation David Thomas

In 2009 I felt a need, personally and professionally to re-engage with the work of Joseph Beuys, particularly those aspects concerning sustainability and the forms that an artwork may take. To my knowledge, in Australia, his work and its implications were not being adequately addressed in the contemporary tertiary art school curricula.

He had been relegated to history. Perhaps he was too dominant a figure in the 1970’s and 1980’s. So I started looking at his work again in detail and reading about him.

In the Forward to “What is Art? Conversations with Joseph Beuys” I came across the words of Professor Shelley Sacks who explored the definition of the aesthetic and the anaesthetic.2 Her definitions rang true to my

own musings, emphasising the difference between an enlivened experience of being and a dulled one. To her the aesthetic and art cannot simply be defined as style but as a means for developing a fuller understanding of ourselves in the world, a composite world that contains natural and cultural, political and personal elements manifest internally as thought and feeling and externally as form and action.

Not long after reading this, in a meeting at RMIT University, that included Mr Ian George I quoted and paraphrased these ideas. To my surprise Ian’s eyes lit up.

Unknown to me Ian George was a passionate supporter of Beuys and Social Sculpture.

Thus a collaboration was born between

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Background to the English translation

him, the RMIT Foundation, the School of Art, two of its research clusters, and Professor Shelley Sacks and Dr Wolfgang Zumdick of the Social Sculpture Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University. This culminated in a 7 day Social Sculpture workshop open to staff, students and the public in June 2010 at RMIT led by Professor Sacks and Dr Zumdick.

The publication in English of “Death keeps me awake” by Dr Zumdick continues this collaboration.

It would not have been possible without the generous support of all parties in particular Mr Ian George and the RMIT Foundation nor without the knowledge and sensitivity of Dr Zumdick and the informed translation of his writing by Professor Sacks.

This book is relevant for artist, art student, academic and the interested general public.

It fills a gap in the literature on both Beuys and Steiner by addressing the relationship of their ideas regarding imagination and freedom, intuition and the spiritual in art.

“Death keeps me awake” provides an important contribution not only to our understanding of Beuys and Steiner but how we can engage with them to reconcile our understanding of the knowledge of the external world in relation to our internal experiences. It places their ideas in the context of western philosophy and how these are manifest via the concrete languages of words, art, of thought. It enables us to question the nature of what art is and might be and defines currently unfashionable terminology usually deemed ‘romantic’. It suggests that if we remain open and uncomfortable our accepted habits may be questioned.

“Death keeps me awake” assists us in considering these ideas in a non-dogmatic manner and enables us to reflect upon where we position ourselves in the world.

How we balance these considerations is important for us as individuals and by implication for the planet as a whole.

Professor David Thomas PhD. School of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne

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Translation Keeps Me Awake Shelley Sacks

This is the second translation relating to Beuys and the field of social sculpture that I have worked on. It has been a daunting challenge but also a great pleasure. The pleasure derives from the way that translating can engage the translator and activate one’s inner field. Stirred by the many questions a text raises and inspired by the consciousness of the writer whose ideas one is trying to inhabit, it is a time when one is so deeply immersed in the territory one is translating that it is difficult to do anything else, even to sleep properly. In such times, it is not only death that keeps me awake, that enlivens me, but translation: the excitement of entering the writer’s mind and psyche as well as the responsibility to both the writer and imagined reader – to ensure that ideas vibrant in

one language culture can come to life in another language, another time, another context, and be meaningfully shared.

So taking on the translation of a book like this is both a gift and an act of devotion. An act of devoted midwifery: the kind of midwifery that Socrates had in mind when thinking about the way in which the art of dialogue could bring new things to birth.

Sounds overstated. But when you are really trying to understand what someone is saying, even more so when the author is trying to explain radical and unfamiliar concepts that others have developed and proposed – as this book does – then you are re-birthing the ideas of many beings, and trying to make sure that you do them justice.

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Translation Keeps Me Awake

Given that translation is such a responsibility, and that doing this book has diverted me from so much of my own work in the field, why, I have asked myself at various moments along the way, did I agree to do this book? The answer has always been clear, even if the challenges have veiled this clarity now and then. I took on the translation of this book primarily because it was necessary: because it is one of the only books that make accessible the evolution of Joseph Beuys’ ideas and their relationship to Rudolf Steiner’s work, and because these ideas offer much of the substance that underpins and informs the field of contemporary social sculpture. I remember how inspired I was years ago, in 1999, when a student, Sven Riemer, gave me a gift of the 1st German edition of this book. Not only did I love Steiner’s cocoon drawing on the cover – also unknown to me up to that point – but to have a book about the nature of thinking in Beuys and Steiner was a thrill and a relief. At last I could get nearer to some of Beuys’ boundary challenging but cryptic statements in terms of their philosophical substance and background. The book served its purpose well, and supported me too in shaping the postgraduate programmes in social sculpture that I had began to develop around this time.

By coming close to Beuys and Steiner’s understanding of the relationship between freedom and thinking, thinking and moral intuition, imagination and engaged action,

we develop vital new resources for our on-going work. These resources can also help to clarify concepts central to the field of social sculpture now – like the need to develop ‘new organs of perception’, the connection between inner and outer work and the role of imagination in transformation.

These are all significant capacities of the free, creative human being that this book helps us to understand. In doing so we also come much closer to the substance embedded in Joseph Beuys’ renowned statement – that ‘every human being is an artist’.

The title of the book itself, with all the inner movement it implies, embodies another central concept in Beuys and Steiner’s work and in the field of social sculpture now, which Wolfgang Zumdick elucidates.

This is the field of the etheric: the tangible life force and energy field that flows through every living being, and that we can learn to work with – especially if we understand its close relationship to thought. It also helps us get closer to what Beuys meant when he spoke about the ‘invisible materials’ and the ‘plastic processes’ in social sculpture or the expanded field of art. And if this sounds like an incomprehensible riddle, it is one of the significant secrets that a careful reading of this book will bring one closer to understanding. Just as it will enable one to comprehend ‘active listening’, to listen to what cannot be heard with the ear – which is one more important dimension of Beuys and

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Steiner’s work, and of our work in the field of social sculpture.

In illuminating such concepts, this book creates a firm and enticing bridge, an access route between those of us working now and two radical, often perplexing figures – Steiner and Beuys. Although their voluminous work is well known worldwide, it is seldom unpacked and illumined carefully enough for us to be able to make sense of. When Steiner and Beuys talk about imagination, inspiration and intuition as forms of thought we can either understand more or less what this might mean, or try and grasp with some precision, the depth of what is being said.

Engaging fully in such complex territory is demanding and confusing, and it helps to have a good guide. The guide in this book is good since he has found his own way through this complex territory and distilled its significance. Though the guide is unassuming and does not try to persuade us, we are reassured. Previously impenetrable phrases begin to make sense. And the book gives us confidence that thinking in the ways that Steiner and Beuys propose, can enable us to become free and conscious thinker-practitioners, working with the ‘invisible materials’ Beuys emphasises, and taking responsibility as the ‘artists’ of our lives and of a viable future.

In terms of translating German terms that do not have straightforward English equivalents,

I must take responsibility here for being the guide. One of the most difficult terms to translate, and yet one that this entire book depends on is ‘Geist’. In English we simply do not have one word that contains all that Geist does. There is no single word that encompasses mind, culture, consciousness, and the entire sphere of thought and spirit. If we use either ‘mental’ or ‘spiritual’ for ‘Geist’ [the noun] or ‘geistig’ [the adjective], as has often been the case in English translations of Steiner and Beuys, what they are talking about can easily become distorted and confused. After much deliberation I have chosen in most instances to use ‘consciousness’ as a way to give a sense that Geist contains more than the English words ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ usually conjure up. I think ‘consciousness’ works because it can include the ‘spirit’ without the separating it from ‘mind’, as would happen if we simply used the English term ‘spirit’ to translate Geist.

Another difficult term is ‘seelisch’. This is difficult for two reasons. One is because any discussion of the soul – in contemporary western culture – is challenging. No longer schooled in or accepting of the old religious explanations, we are not always sure what ‘soul’ means. In English it is often conflated with ‘spirit’ and both are understood as rather vague terms. One of the ways round this is to translate ‘Seele’ with psyche – the original Greek term for soul. This is more acceptable because we can fairly readily relate it to that part of our being that is not physically visi-

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ble. We even have a science that relates to this territory: psychology. So using ‘psyche’ in place of ‘soul’ for the German term ‘Seele’ solves one problem. However, the second difficulty arises from the fact that the adjective drawn from ‘psyche’ in English would be ‘psychic’. This, because it has a completely inappropriate set of connotations in English, could not be used for the German adjective ‘seelisch’. I have therefore sought to avoid it wherever possible and instead tried to reconstruct the sentence.

Using terms like psyche for ‘Seele’ instead of ‘soul’, and consciousness for ‘Geist’ instead of ‘spirit’, has also created another role for this book: to make these significant aspects of our reality more accessible in contemporary discourse. This is important too for our on-going work in the field of social sculpture where the realities of psyche and consciousness are central. A number of Wolfgang Zumdick’s new, still unpublished texts that deal with what he describes as the ‘poetic continent’, as the journey from ‘paradise to social sculpture and beyond’ and as the ‘role of imagination in becoming eco-citizens and agents of change’, depend on recognising and understanding ‘Seele’ and ‘Geist’ as contemporary realities.

The cover to this English edition also relates to consciousness and psyche. To their emergence and the conditions required for them to be nurtured and to unfold. It was Wolfgang’s idea to bring these two images

together: Steiner’s drawing of the cocoon from which new life emerges and Beuys’ image of ‘The Chief’ – cocooned in his blanket of felt, but holding in his hand the staff of connecting, the staff of enlightenment, the staff with which we can choose, gather and direct the energies of our lives. Hopefully with the inner staff at our disposal, we will act and intervene in a tuned and synchronous way. Being ‘tuned in’ and connected allows for emergence and unfolding, whilst at the same time remaining focused and giving direction, like ‘the chief’. We are not animate cocoons that contain the pattern of how to live perfectly, enfolded in the form. Unlike a tree that knows how to be a tree, humans, because we have creativity and freedom, can grow in distorted ways, or develop only very limited capacities. And so we cannot simply let things unfold. We need to work with the ‘directional forces’ that Beuys described as ‘Richtkräfte’. We need to give direction to our thinking and to our psyches; to consciously participate in the shaping of our world. The material in this book should support this dual process – of shaping an eco-social organism based on insights and ideas, whilst developing the capacities that allow necessary forms to emerge. By Understanding the sphere of freedom and imagination, and how freedom is related to responsibility and moral intuition, this book enables us to see that ‘allowing to unfold’ and ‘giving direction’ need not be contradictory; that opposing forces can, if comprehended, add up to one truth.

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Wolfgang Zumdick wrote this book as a young man intrigued by such ‘Richtkräfte’ and the nature of transformative thought. I think it says as much about the territory as about him, that he is even more passionate about exploring directional forces, than he was in the late 1980s, when, shortly after the death of Joseph Beuys, he wrote this book.

Beuys, I am sure, would also have been very pleased with this work – then, and even more so now. Pleased because the roots of his ideas and their connection to Rudolf Steiner are presented to us in a way that unravels their inner workings. Wolfgang’s detailed and step-by-step exploration of ‘thinking’ in both Steiner and Beuys, with special emphasis on imagination, inspiration and intuition, enables us to develop new approaches to thinking as well as to carry these insights from their philosophical thought-work into many areas of our contemporary world.

Although Wolfgang has thanked me warmly for my work – I must also thank him. During our long hours of discussion, I have had the opportunity to explore with him in much detail some of the more complex ideas and questions that surface in both Steiner’s and Beuys’ work, as well as the significance of these ideas for the field of contemporary social sculpture.

All the others involved in this project in different ways – Ian George, Prof. David Thomas and Dr. Richard Rosch – are warmly

thanked for their contribution to this translation, which in turn is a contribution to the field of social sculpture. Each one has played a special role: Ian really wanted to read the book, and made it possible through his determination and generously providing the necessary support. David’s support for our Social Sculpture workshop at RMIT, and increasing interest in Beuys and social sculpture enabled him to confirm the book’s significance. However, without the commitment, skill and interest of Richard Rosch, who provided us with the first translation – undertaken whilst completing his Masters in Social Sculpture, as well as his final medical exams – I would not have been able to rework and disentangle the finer details of this challenging book in dialogue with Wolfgang. This was a very interesting and intense collaboration.

And now we thank you, the still unknown reader, for entering this world with us.

I am confident that this book will lead to a greater comprehension of the philosophy of freedom, and to an enhanced understanding of the work still to come in this multidimensional field of transformation.

Shelley Sacks – Oxford 4 October 2012 Shelley Sacks is a social sculpture practitioner, Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit and Professor in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes University.

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Robert Nelson, THE AGE About this book Few people are indifferent to Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner – although it is decades since their death. One is a political clown and artistic agitator, the other an eccentric and esoteric philosopher. This is a judgement that many people still hold fast. Death Keeps Me Awake does not only show the intimate connection between Joseph Beuys’s and Rudolf Steiner’s thought. It also reveals the internal consistency and depth of their thinking, their determination and seriousness, and this, despite all the humour apparent in many of their works and statements. This book shows clearly that they attempt nothing less than to change the world.

Death Keeps Me Awake

“A German scholar Wolfgang Zumdick has written a remarkable book on the parallel between Steiner and Beuys”

Wolfgang Zumdick

art architecture design research

Death Keeps Me Awake Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner Foundations of their Thought

AADR publishes innovative artistic, creative and historical research in art, architecture, design and related fields.

Dr Wolfgang Zumdick is an author, philosopher, curator and Joseph Beuys – Social Sculpture specialist, working internationally. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from RWTH Aachen, has curated several Joseph Beuys and social sculpture exhibitions and is author of numerous publications on the history of philosophy and on 20th century art and philosophy, with a specific focus on Joseph Beuys. From 1996 –1998 he was a scholarship holder at the Laurenz Haus Foundation, Basel. He is a core member of the Social Sculpture Research Unit and a Senior Lecturer in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes University, in Oxford, England. He has been guest lecturer at numerous universities internationally. Death Keeps Me Awake is the first major publication in English on the epistemological frameworks in Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner’s work.

ISBN 978-3-88778-381-5

Wolfgang Zumdick

About the author