Joseph Beuys, © bpk, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Stiftung Museum Schloss Moyland and Ute Klophaus, courtesy of Zero One Film and Kino Lorber

7000 Dreams marks the beginning of the new Joseph Beuys Research Center China, inaugurated by the Ennova Art Museum in collaboration with the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and Phoenix Art. It aims to expand and reactivate our understanding of one of the most outstanding artists in the history of contemporary art, Joseph Beuys, for whom human signification, the construction of meaning, was paramount.

There are many curatorial inspirations. One is the growing demand in society for art with a personal and social meaning, for authenticity.  Another is how we view the act of creation, the notion of poiesis, to use a term of the French philosopher and poet Paul Valéry - as distinct from the process of reception and perception of the artwork, its aesthesis.  A notion that finds a profound echo in Beuys's own thought and practice and was crucial to the emergence of happenings and performances in which the creative act itself became the work of art.

Joseph Beuys, I Like America And America Likes Me, 1974, Video film scans

The authentic act is, of course, embodied in Beuys' performances, but it is also visible and tangible in his drawings, which he reproduced in lithographs and engravings in series presented in the exhibition, such as Suite: Circulation Time, Drawings for Codices Madrid by Leonardo da Vinci or, for that matter, American Hare Sugar. This juxtaposition of a double articulation of the creative act, of poiesis, in the form of drawings and performances, was also the authentic signifier and point of departure for the artist's most emblematic and fundamental action, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965).  

Joseph Beuys, Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt, 1965, Video film scans

With Beuys, the gesture, the act, the process, became as essential to artistic conception and appreciation as the end result. Thought and action, matter and spirit, persona and object, as well as education, merged into an inseparable whole, to be valued and appreciated in impermanence and movement, as exchange and change. Beuys profoundly understood the creative potential of each individual, what Valéry defined as implex, that an empty, erased blackboard could be as meaningful as a filled one. That what mattered was the possibility, a potential that everyone possessed.

Joseph Beuys, ERNTERNTER SCHAUPLATZ, 1973/1981, Video film scans

In a contemporary historical context in which neural network machines and mass data are profoundly transforming artistic creation and human thought, Joseph Beuys: 7000 Dreams aims to explore a common ground of authentic human creation.  Articulated in the work of an artist whose entire existence was focused on giving and creating new meaning, capable of identifying and articulating the monumental in the smallest of forms. It seeks to explore new meanings that are at once intimate, universal, ephemeral and enduring, like ricochets of a double authenticity.

Joseph Beuys, (Aktion "…und in uns, unter uns, landunter..."，  Video film scans

7000 Dreams, of course, alludes to Beuys's most important monumental work, 7000 Oaks (1982-1987), as an example of a seemingly impossible project made possible through utopian vision and determined effort. As the first work of art in history with a direct practical environmental purpose, 7000 Oaks defends nature by its very existence through its practical function of reforestation. Each of its 7000 individual gestures, ephemeral in themselves, collectively forged permanence and instigated tangible change.  It is a model of art with social responsibility, poetically articulated in a living form that directly engages citizens to touch their hearts  and minds. It is also a work of art that tells us that without dreams we are nothing, we have nothing, no civilisation, no goals, no vision, no utopia, no future. That it is the dream that drives us to achieve the extraordinary, to go beyond the possible and ultimately beyond ourselves.

Joseph Beuys, 7000 Oaks, Video film scans

If Joseph Beuys: 7000 Dreams is a modest exhibition to mark the beginning of the Joseph Beuys Research Center China, its purpose is to provoke reflection on how Beuys' thought and work continue to deepen our understanding of art and its transformative potential. Beuys' revolutionised and democratised avant-garde thought, opening up dreams of a social sculpture, and of equality, where art, knowledge and dialogue between people are the true human capital. A social conviction that he articulated in a single, simple but revolutionary phrase, full of artistic and human potential: "Everyone is an artist".

Artist: Joseph Beuys 

Joseph Beuys, Germany, 1921-1986. Many of Joseph Beuys' works are based on humanist, social philosophy, and anthropological concepts, reaching a climax in his idea of the "extended definition of art" and social sculpture as a total artwork, for which Beuys claimed that these works had creative and participatory roles in shaping society and politics. Beuys used a variety of highly symbolic materials, such as felt, fat or honey, which were closely related to the shamanic aspects of his creative content (including performances, speeches, and educational actions). His goal was to infuse the creative ability that usually exists only within the artist community into all areas of life.

Curators: Jonas Stampe, Xiao Ge

Jonas Stampe, art historian, curator and art critic, born in 1965 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2000, he has worked as a curator and project manager, initiating and curating more than 65 international events and festivals, including more than 480 artists from more than 60 countries. In 2017, he joined the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing as Senior curator and Senior Researcher. In 2019, he co-curated with his wife Xiao Ge the award winning exhibition "Ways of Seeing". Later，they also curated the exhibitions "From Screen To Mind – A 50 Year History", "When Speed Becomes Form – Live in Your Screen", "Beauty, Created by Experience", etc.. Recently, he curated the world's first exhibition of performance art holograms called "VIVAAR VENEZIA" in an independent exhibition for the 60th Venice Biennale 2024. He is currently co-curating with Xiao Ge a major retrospective exhibition of Bernar Venet, at Phoenix Center in Beijing, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France.

Xiao Ge, curator, media professional, editor-in-chief of Phoenix Art and director of Phoenix Center. Born in an artistic family, she graduated from many universities such as Central Academy of Fine Arts and Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, returned to China and settled in Beijing in 2009. She was the curator of the 9th Shanghai Biennale "Zhongshan Park Project". In 2013, she curated the 55th Venice Biennale Parallel Exhibition "The Grand Canal". In 2014, she joined Phoenix TV, as the co-founder of Phoenix Art, led the team to build it into one of the most influential art media in China, and planned many influential exhibitions and activities such as "Phoenix TV 20th Anniversary Celebration Grand Exhibition", "Amazing women – A Tribute Exhibition to Outstanding Female Artists by Forbes China", etc.. In 2019, she founded a curatorial group with her husband Jonas Stampe, they curated the award winning exhibition "Ways of Seeing", a major retrospective exhibition "Bernar Venet: Beyond Concept and Matter" , etc..

About the Exhibition

Time: 2024.12.15-2025.06.15

Curators: Jonas Stampe & 肖戈Xiao Ge

Price: Single ticket ¥80

Venue: Ennova Art Museum

Courtesy of Ennova Art Museum.