"What is presented here is a selection from hundreds of photos. Our respective authorship is not specific, particularly since, in individual cases, we can no longer figure out which one of us clicked the shutter"--Page [5].

Joseph Beuys is one of the most legendary figures of twentieth century art; his work and ideas continue to impact on artists today. An enigmatic, self-styled 'shaman' who embraced radically democratic artistic and political ideas, he has attained almost mythical status. This reader brings together the crucial texts on Beuys to look at the most contentious reception ever accorded a postwar artist.Here in one volume, are key essays by prominent artists and critics from North America and Europe, in a collection which foregrounds the full scope of Beuys' work across performance, drawing, painting, sculpture and multiples. With a foreword by Arthur C Danto, "Joseph Beuys: The Reader" features Benjamin Buchloh's seminal essay 'Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol' and texts by Rosalind Krauss, Peter Burger, Vera Frenkel, Irit Rogoff, Thierry de Duve and others, as well as essays translated for the first time into English. Also included are two discussions, previously unpublished outside of Germany, with Beuys himself, as well as a useful chronology of key events and exhibitions in the life of this most charismatic figure. The most significant collection of texts on this artist to date, the book will be essential reading for any student of Beuys and for all those interested in postwar art, the cult of the artist, and art's engagement with politics and society.

Joseph Beuys’s work continues to influence and inspire practitioners and thinkers all over the world, in areas from organizational learning, direct democracy and new money forms to new art pedagogies and ecological art practices. Here, in dialogue with Volker Harlan - a close colleague, whose own work also revolves around understandings of substance and sacrament that are central to Beuys - the deeper motivations and insights underlying ‘social sculpture’, Beuys’s expanded conception of art, are illuminated. His profound reflections, complemented with insightful essays by Volker Harlan, give a sense of the interconnectedness between all life forms, and the foundations of a path towards an ecologically sustainable future. This volume features over 40 b/w illustrations.

By Caroline Tisdall. Artwork by Joseph Beuys.

What happens when nothing happens?