Wolfgang Zumdick
Death Keeps Me Awake
Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner
Foundations of their Thought
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Table of Contents
Foreword – 10
Ian George
Background to the English translation
David Thomas
Translation Keeps Me Awake
Shelley Sacks
–
Preface to the English publication
Wolfgang Zumdick
–
12
14
–
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
Imagination – 49
Inspiration – 53
Intuition – 59
Moral Intuition – 59
The I-In-Itself – 60
Will – 61
The Higher I-In-Itself –
Summary – 64
–
48
63
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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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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2. [R]Evolution
Beuys combined the central tenets of his
thinking into a philosophy of history, which
he repeatedly depicted in a diagram, mostly on
a blackboard. This diagram, reproduced and
published several times, carries the significant
title Evolution. 172 By means of a highly
schematised drawing, Beuys outlines his
notion of evolution and the metamorphosis of
the human spirit [Fig. 15].173 The beginning of
this development is illustrated on the left
hand side of the blackboard and characterised
by the term Myth [cp. Fig. 15a]. Beuys illustrates
this mythological thinking by drawing a
placenta above the terrestrial sphere. Earth is
surrounded by pneuma, the placenta of the
spiritual world. Through a notional umbilical
cord thought is supplied with imaginations
and inspirations, with images of myth or
prophecies of the oracle. Early human cultures
are depicted here as cultures of inspiration.
Cultures of Inspiration
In a conversation with the art academic,
Willi Bongard, Beuys demonstrates this
with reference to the collectivist traditions:
“The individual artwork only really reappears after the baroque period. What can
one conclude from this? Doesn’t one have
to conclude that some kind of inspirational
source must have been present in older art
to create this shared sense? This inspirational source can be discovered in Egyptian art for example as a dictate of the
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2. [R]Evolution
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Joseph Beuys: Evolution, pencil, 1974.
priesthood. The priesthood as mediator, as
mediators with their deities, purport to
transport the information from the extrasensory world and pass it on to the artists as
dictate. In other words, the world has to
conform to the prescriptions of the transcendental authorities. This is why there
was a very strict canon, transmitted by the
higher priesthood and regarded as dictate
by the artists. Thus, art in ancient Egypt was
to a large extent not yet an art of man but
had its source in the extrasensory realm.”174
The extrasensory realm is the source not only
of Egyptian culture but of all early cultures.
The magicians and shamans of the archaic
world as well as the priests of cultures
emerging from their animistic religions were
all inspired by the world of the spirit. Even in
Plato, there still is a sense of human
dependency on the gods – for example,
Socrates’ admission in the Symposium that his
deepest insights into the nature of Eros were
not arrived at through his own reasoning, but
were revealed by the words of a prophetess
from Apollo’s sanctuary. Inspired minds like
the prophetess, Diotima of Mantineia,
directly experience the effect of thought
forces and spiritual entities, and by virtue of
their special spiritual ability they are
capable of interpreting the language of the
spirit.175
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Second Book – Revolution of the Concepts
For those not initiated into it, the spiritual
world, whilst governing human action, is
an incomprehensible realm interwoven by
its multitude of divine, but also demonic
forces. Because the uninitiated would,
without spiritual guidance, fall into despair,
they are seen to require the care of specialist
inspired minds, as only they are in contact
with the spiritual sphere. These recipients
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of inspired knowledge have a mercurial
function: like Hermes, they take on the role
of messenger and mediator between divine
and terrestrial world. They are, as Nietzsche
puts it, the mouthpiece 176 of the gods.
Dreamlike, mythical images once appeared
to the founders of mythological religions,
and like dreams, the visions of her god
Apollo, appear to the prophetic Pythia.
Joseph Beuys: Sybilla – Pythonissa, 1954.
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