Joseph Beuys: the Multiples: Die Multiples 1965-1986

Out of print since 1999, the classic catalogue raisonna of Joseph Beuys’s multiples is available again at last. Beuys, the most influential German–and perhaps the most influential European–artist of the postwar period, was born in 1921. He had planned to be a doctor, but following World War II he enrolled in the Dsseldorf Academy of Art. As a professor there in the early 1960s he encountered the influence of Fluxus and began to make and show the multiples–prints and boxes and other objects in editions–that became such a key part of his work. Those highlighted here include sleds, pieces of felt, signed head shots of the artist and texts calligraphed onto bank notes in francs, marks and schillings. Bruno Cora Tea mocks both mass production and boutique cachet by refilling a Coca-Cola bottle with tea, resealing it with flourishes worthy of a Belgian beer, and putting the whole thing in a glass-fronted box. Joseph Beuys: Multiples includes some 600 pieces, annotated lists of the major collections where they can be found, essays from significant curators and scholars and an interview with the artist.