Three books stand out from Boise’s New Year’s publications: a biography of D ഡsseldorf journalist Christian Hoffman, including contemporary Witnesses, and a portrait book by longtime associates Gerhard Style and Close Stake, as well as a biography of Zurich’s works of art.

Origin divides his well-established and easy-to-read book, Art, Capital, and Revolution into 24 chapters, which he calls Tables. The author traveled throughout Europe to follow in the artist’s footsteps in his life and in his works – in museums and landscapes. The author describes himself as a friend of the so-called “reconstruction,” an attempt to transform and understand historical events through staging. He wants to distinguish between biography and work, not about meaning, but about the works of Beauce. To this end, he finds the artist’s life in places such as the Hesse Lands Museum in Dormstadt, as well as a large number of works in the Lower Rhine, such as “Block Bus”, in Belgium and Ireland.

“Extended concept of art”, “Social sculpture”

By portraying himself as a savior who wanted to change society through art, Origin tells of Beauce’s past as a Vermact soldier and the creation of myths and legends. The art historian explains that the “extended concept of art” is only through him and that “everyone is an artist” – the “social sculpture” to be attended to. Sometimes it reads very consistently – because large parts of the original text are a first-person report.

The questions he asks sometimes seem to be just to confirm his own Boise image. “I didn’t want to handle a job that had to be joined like an order,” Ursprang himself commented on Boise worship during his lifetime; It does not always comply with its claims. Even the history of European history, cited over and over again as a reference, does not help his loyal followers – with the fervent help of Beauce during his lifetime – to bring Beauce down from the nigo-anthropological pedestal that has held him to this day.

(Picture Alliance / dpa / Bernd von Jutrczenka)Jonathan Mees – “Booze without politbus is fun!”
Jonathan Mees is hosting a theater party in Vienna to mark the 100th birthday of Joseph Beas. At this point, the artist Beauce should celebrate, but not the politician. Mees believes the two areas need to be separated.

And uncomfortable questions

Art critic Christian Hoffmans approaches her subject more objectively and remotely. She is also familiar with the work of Joseph Beuse, and has seen a lot of it. The structured introduction to your timeline keeps the “Artist of the Century Buzz” away from the artist and his art over and over again and keeps track of things. Beauges describes and analyzes her teaching activities, her discussion with NRW Science Minister Johannes Rao, her political involvement with the “Greens”, and her great past review of the Guggenheim Museum in 1979 – as in the case of Ursprung.

After all, Hoffman is not afraid to ask the latest embarrassing question since Hans Peter Regal submitted a four-volume biography with an educational claim from 2013 (in Riverside Publishing): Was Beuse’s self-portrait one? The Redeemer form and the healer’s reaction to Auschwitz? His rejection of modernity, his zeal to romanticize niguism, his essay that rationalism destroys people’s souls? How Boise’s activities, writings, and initiatives, such as “Organization for Direct Democracy Through Referendum,” were vulcanized and nationalized. Were there no historical models for the goal of beautifying politics?

However, after all, Hoffman asks the crucial question about the present of Joseph Beuse’s art: not only the remains of his works and his nigo presence in museums – but also dead objects, ideas, and ideologies from the past? What actions and activities are relevant today? How should museums handle Buis and his works? Will his comrades play an important role in not being able to maintain the Bus Myth for a few decades?

Friendly album

Gerhard Style, a publisher and friend of Boise’s, wrote the “Book of Buses” dedicated solely to this myth. On page 736 you have collected only the photographs that Boise repeatedly shows. 452 Recordings: Busy with fans at work, at shows, in the studio, when signing, in conversations. Only photography and film are the work of the artist and the dubious charisma, beyond his works, is still preserved today. The critical distance, even the analytical approach, is not informed by the selection with a short introductory text. However, it did not want to be the purpose of this friendly album in book form. I would like to add to this the other two books – perhaps for licensing and cost reasons – that very little can be done: Visual Documentation.

Philip Ursprang: “Joseph Beas. Art, Capital, and the Revolution”
CH Beck Verlag, Munich
336 pages. 29.95 Euros

Close Stake / Gerhard Stade: “The Bus Book”
Style Verlag, Guttingen
736 pages with 452 illustrations. 45 euros

Christian Hoffman: “Joseph Beauze, Artist of the Century.
Introduction to Life and Work “
Kultur West Publishing House, Essen
160 pages. 14.95 Euro