Gerd Ludwig photographs …
Beuys by the wayside. Squatting in front of an old tree with furrowed bark, he collects soil.
Photo link: Gerd Ludwig: Joseph Beuys, 1978
https://www.gerdludwig.com/stories/joseph-beuys-journey-to-the-lower-rhine
Peter Sager writes:
Beuys refuses a stroll through Kleve. “Why? The countryside is much more beautiful!” We walk through a long avenue of poplars. “I’ll take some soil with me,” Beuys says, filling a plastic bag full of arable soil with his bare hands. “Where can I get something like that in Düsseldorf?” Beuys has a direct link to the earth. (…) Later, he scrapes humus from a broken pollarded willow. When Beuys is on the road, he always keep a box for soil samples in his Bentley. “I have no needs,” he says. “I have no desire to buy new clothes or go on vacation. I collect for others, I pass it on. For myself, I collect earth, different kinds of earth.” (TIME Magazine 1978)
BEUYS MAKES
Even as a child, Beuys collected in nature and showed what he had collected. The exhibition Cleves underground exhibition (digging beneath the ground parallel to the surface) was staged in the year 1933 , when he was 12 years old, as mentioned in his curriculum vitae/work history. A companion from Beuys’ childhood days remembers.
Video
Remembrance of Josef Sanders
Duration: 2:17 min
Und heute …
Was hätte Beuys wohl heute in der Hand, um Erde zu sammeln?
Radroute zur nächsten Station:
· auf der Keekener Str. Richtung Mehr
· rechts in Tutweg
· rechts in Nieler Str. bis Nr.11
Station 6: Am Dassendonkshof
