Most of the great references of art from the second half of the 20th century are usually read from a contemporary perspective, emphasizing those aspects that are considered most relevant at each moment. Artists as versatile as Cindy Sherman can be analyzed from a photographic, cinematographic or appropriationist point of view, among others. At the time, feminist theories saw in her an example of the stereotypes of femininity and post-structuralist theories, an example of the construction of the notion of identity as a compendium of the notion of “the death of the author.” As Hal Foster wrote on the occasion of the retrospective dedicated to her by the MoMA in New York in 2012, this shows “how right we were and, at the same time, how wrong we were.”
In the case of Francis Bacon, during the 1980s (postmodernism, let us not forget) there was talk of references to the history of art (from Velázquez to Picasso, passing through Chaim Soutine), of the gesture and expressiveness of the brushstrokes and of the solitude and violence that his paintings could transmit. After the artist’s death in 1992, his studio was donated by his partner, John Edwards, to the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, where it was reconstructed with archaeological precision. From that moment on, his work methodology was valued, visible from the huge collection of photographs, illustrations from medical journals, press reports and reproductions of works that are in his studio. It is no coincidence that this focus of attention on his archive took place at the turn of the century.
But recovering or vindicating an artist is not interesting for what the present can tell you but for what an artist can contribute to the present. So now would be a good time to vindicate, once again and in all its complexity, the figure of Joseph Beuys, his conviction in the transformative power of art, the necessary connection with politics, the pedagogical, ritual, symbolic, mystical, humorous aspects and the consideration of the multiple and its democratic scope as valid elements to disseminate his discourse.
At a time of strong permeability between art, mediation and pedagogy and cultural industries, this approach to art becomes relevant again. Going back to Beuys right now could be as if we could talk to our past selves, the only one with the authority to make us see that we are destroying the planet (as not so much politicians and large corporations remind us every day, but Greta Thunberg and so many other teenagers and activists of what we have so much to learn) and to reconcile ourselves with a humanist discourse that believed/believes in the capacity of people to make the world a better place.
[Article published in Bonart, 2019]
