widthHe was in front of the screen of the Limebrook Museum in Duisburg with Joseph Boyce Unbelievably, he held a meeting there on January 12, 1986, and he couldn’t believe it: there was only one stumbling block, Beuys’s tirade, freely and targetedly speaking about his artistic influence and beliefs. He died eleven days later, at the age of 64. Boyce’s speech was also surprising because he appointed Wilhelm Lehmbruck as his teacher. He died in 1919, two years before Boyce was born. The illustration of one of his works sparked his initial spark when he was young: “Everything is sculpture, so to speak, this painting evokes me.”
It was a pleasant surprise to establish a teacher relationship with Lehmbruck, thereby ignoring the real master Ewald Mataré. But Boyce and Duisburg are just as right now, making this selective affinity easy to understand through a large number of fascinating paintings and sculptures by the two artists.
The most banal similarities were quickly discovered: Lembrook and Boyce were also strongly influenced by Rudolf Steiner. This is shown in the exhibition, which is concentrated in seven rooms, in the teaching materials and inexplicable Between the visual universe of the use of Boyce’s slate on the easel, Lembrook’s early character spiritualization and the initial tendency of Gothic extension can be derived to a large extent from Steiner’s thoughts. “Listening, thinking, and wishing” are the three pillars of Boyce’s work. These three key concepts can be regarded as the basic themes of Limebrook without any distortion.
Insightful failure is an opportunity-cure
One of the key similarities is the basic belief that failure is a healing opportunity through art and culture mediation.Both tried the trauma and trauma of the war in Lehmbruck’s home First world war, In Beuys the Second, was transformed into art. It is impossible to imagine a “war memorial” that is more non-war than the “fallen man” holding a dagger in Limebrook. An unnamed installation created by Beuys in 1971 is set obliquely behind it for viewing together. A bronze cross with a halo is like a seal on a wooden ammunition box, on which stands a crudely trimmed spruce with a mountain lamp. Here, as often happens in Boyce, it is naturally a substitute for the “fallen” in the war. For him, the spruce represents death, and the cross represents life and salvation. Therefore, the abstract symbolic sculpture is similar in content and form to the Lehmbruck figure in front of it. In turn, he drew a poignant “Pieta” on the opposite wall and placed a bowl on the injured person’s leg as a sign of energy supply. A narrow beam of light appeared on her black chest, just like Boyce’s device, radiating from the crossed and radiating flames of the sun, symbolizing the warmth that gives life.
After war disasters, people tend to be forgotten soon, and “zero hour” is installed, everything should start from scratch, everything should be recreated, and there is no connection with the previous ones. However, Limebrook and Boyce strongly oppose this artificial zeroing, hoping to continue to show old injuries instead of hiding unhealed wounds. Just as the former admires Gothic, because it can visualize the most abstract facts in the invisible body—for example, in the form of the Pietà, she is the same age as her son whose body has almost disappeared in order to become his patron, the bride ——So Boyce strengthened figurative art after the war, and opposed fleeing to non-figurative art. He developed new symbols from traditional portrait paintings, which are by no means — as people often claim — sealed and indistinguishable. On the contrary: In essence, Boyce has few ever-changing fundamental and material images. The trick is that the audience can understand the new arrangement, and can and must think about the unfinished work in public until the end.
