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STATION 4: IN THE DUEFFEL

Gerd Ludwig photographs …

… Beuys very close, today we approach him from a distance. 

Peter Sager writes:

Just behind Kleve begins the southern Russian steppe, the Lower Rhine plain, the plain of Genghis Khan, Eurasia, the other plain of Joseph Beuys. “Westmensch” meets “Ostmensch” in the mist between the pastures. Cross-country, a hare criss-cross rapidly into the empty landscape. Low horizon and high sky, Beuys feels at home. This is his landscape, very simple and with depth, barren like his works. Deep horizon and high sky, barren land with dark scours. Here, only those see something who see exactly; who have faces where others see nothing at all: Beuys looks over his landscape, the Lower Rhine plain near Kleve.” (ZEIT Magazine 1978)

BEUYS POWER

His biographical points of reference are echoed in drawings, actions and spatial installations.

Joseph Beuys – Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, 1968

After visiting a funeral in Kleve, he amusedly tells his student Johannes Stüttgen about the conversation of the old women, in which Ja, Ja, Ja and Nee, Nee, Nee are recurring phrases. From this he develops his performance, which he records with Johannes Stüttgen at the Düsseldorf Academy, with precisely this title Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, which sounds, as it were, like music. 

Audio Link: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, 1968.

Duration: 10:59

Join in – on the road

Take a 360° look around the landscape and listen to excerpts from the Beuys action “Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee”.  

or

Take your cell phone, film a 360° panoramic view over the landscape and repeat the Lower Rhine dialogue in your own way “Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee”.

And today …

you look from the center of the Düffel over the agricultural areas in the Rhine plain to the ridge of the Reichswald forest

Cycle route to the next station

– on the Dingdung

– right into Zyfflicher Straße 

– right into Keekener Straße

– past the animal shelter 

– until junction In der Gemeinde

Station 5: At the tree

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