In 1984 Joseph Beuys assembled his monumental The End of the 20th Century in Haus der Kunst in Munich: 44 basalt blocks with conical sections drilled out of them, the resulting "stoppers" slotted back into place using a bed of felt and clay. He arranged the blocks to create an animated vibrant formation that charged the entire room with meaning. The relocation of the work to the new Munich Pinakothek der Moderne set an almost impossible challenge for conservators, not least owing to the fiery debate whether an aeuvre an artist had himself laid out could be touched in the first place. But in the end, they succeeded: a key late 20th-century artwork was given a new location and none of its suggestive powers had been forfeited in the process.

During the 1970s, the German sculptor Joseph Beuys made a number of trips to Ireland and Scotland. This interdisciplinary study of the artist's work in the "Celtic world" assesses whether the practice shown or developed during these visits could be seen, in any sense, as a language practice - more specifically, as a "language of healing" - and whether Beuys could be said to have interpreted and performed notions of "Celticity" in these places. The book reflects on the anthropological aspect of Beuys' work and includes interview material with artists who worked with or met him during this time. (Series: European Studies in Culture and Policy - Vol. 10)

A fully illustrated, panoramic world history of art from ancient civilisation to the present day, exploring the remarkable endurance of humankind's creative impulse. Some fifty thousand years ago, on an island in modern-day Indonesia, an early human used red ochre pigment to capture the likeness of a native pig on a limestone cave wall. Around the same time, across the globe in Europe, another human retrieved a lump of charcoal from an old fire and sketched four galloping horses. It was like a light turning on in the human mind. Our instinct to produce images in response to nature allowed the earliest Homo sapiens to understand the world around us, and to thrive. Now, the art historian John-Paul Stonard has travelled across continents to take us on a panoramic journey through the history of art – from ancient Anatolian standing stones to a Qing Dynasty ink handscroll, from a drawing by a Kiowa artist from the Great Plains to a post-independence Congolese painting. Lavishly illustrated throughout, Creation is an ambitious, thrilling and landmark work that leads us from Benin to Belgium, China to Constantinople, Mexico to Mesopotamia. Journeying from pre-history to the present day, it explores the remarkable endurance of humankind's creative impulse, and asks how – and why – we create.

Nature, Space and the Sacred offers the first investigative mapping of a new and highly significant agenda: the spatial interactions between religion, nature and culture. In this ground-breaking work, different concepts of religion, theology, space and place and their internal relations are discussed in an impressive range of approaches. Weaving together a diversity of perspectives, this book presents an innovative and truly transdisciplinary environmental science. Its broad range offers a rich exchange of insights, methods and theoretical engagements.

A distinguished group of critics, art historians and artists gathered at the Ringling Museum to take part in an international symposium on the legacy of Joseph Beuys. The papers presented here examine the artist's various productive modes by means of different critical tools and criteria. The result is a much needed reader that will help both students and art professionals come to terms with this controversial and eno

Edited by Jarg Schellmann. Essays by Dierk Stemmler, Joan Rothfuss, Jarg Schellmann and Peter Nisbet. Afterword by James Cuno and Kathy Halbreich.

This is an indispensible volume for creators, curators, and conservators of installation art. Installation art is an evolving, often ephemeral medium that defies rigid categorization. It has also radically transformed the concepts of space, time, and the experience of art. The conservation field is faced with unique challenges over how best to manage and preserve the essence of these works. How detailed can documentation get? When does the replacement of original components become acceptable? How does the field cope with the obsolescence of certain technologies? By exploring the questions and dilemmas facing those who care for art installations, this book intends to raise awareness and promote discussion about the various conservation approaches for these works.