Katharina Neuburger - Böcker

The special volume ZERO in the Notizen zu Uecker series collates lecture manuscripts from the workshop "Der Zustand des Erlebens", which took place in Düsseldorf in cooperation with the ZERO foundation in 2023. Invited participants addressed pressing questions regarding artistic action in recent debate. The contributions include approaches focussing on German post-war art, art historical discourses and political theory in the 1960s, elaborated in contemporary debate about artistic production, the field of action, and experiencing the work and the subject, as well as action art, performance, and performativity. The authors’ varied expertise offers fresh perspectives on a contemporary field of discourse. Look inside Bilingual German-English Artistic action, action art, performance, and performativity Günther Uecker and German postwar art

In his cycle of prints Homage to Hafez (2015), Günther Uecker engages in intercultural dialogue with poetry by the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez. In All der Zeichen (In all the Signs), the artist’s specific approach is interpreted for the first time as an act of ‘performative translation,’ whereby the work emerges as a mediator between worlds and media. Uecker works on intertwined linguistic, media and cultural levels. According to the authors, the performative practice underlying his approach discloses an interpretation extending beyond simplistic attributions.

In conversations and interviews Joseph Beuys mentioned Marcel Duchamp more than any other artist. And hardly anyone else seems to have challenged him more than this artist from the previous generation. Direct evidence of this is his oft-cited action Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet (The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated) from 1964, through which Beuys attempted to shift focus onto the political and social dimensions of his concept of expanded art. The associations and connections between the artists go deep. Both used similar radical strategies to rejuvenate the concept of art and the role of art in everyday life; their questions had a number of aspects in common. This richly illustrated catalogue is the first to undertake a profound exploration of this multilayered relationship, while investigating both artists’ future-oriented potential.