Joseph Beuys And Postwar German Mansulinity

This project examines the role of masculinity in the artwork and persona of postwar West German artist Joseph Beuys. Specifically, I am analyzing how Beuys' construction of himself as a shaman-like figure in both his performance pieces, which he calls "Actions," and in his public persona relates to concepts of masculinity that were being negotiated in the postwar West German state. After World War Two, West Germany had to renegotiate their place within the western world and especially in relation to the increasing cultural hegemony of the United States. For Beuys, rising to prominence in the early 1960s in the neo-avant-garde, this means positioning oneself as a German artist in an art world that has become dominated by American artists. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the American Abstract Expressionists rose to prominence within the art world with their large-scale, expressive paintings such as the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. The mainly male Abstract Expressionists also embodied a type of masculinity characterized by the heroic individualism of the "anti-intellectual man of action." I argue that Beuys positioned himself in opposition to these Americanized ideals through a negotiation of the concepts of Germaness and masculinity in his public persona and performances..