Joseph Beuys ~ Lightning with Stag in its Glare: The wedge-shaped object entitled Blitzschlag, over six metres in height from top to bottom, came into being when Beuys cast a segment of the clay mound. The soft clay substance had become a hard metal sculpture. "In fact, the total volume of the mound of clay corresponded to that of Beuys's studio in Düsseldorf." (Johannes Stüttgen) Blitzschlag took on the effect of a relief with extreme plasticity. The thin sheet of cast metal might be the skin shed by the clay mound, but it is also reminiscent of hot, flowing lava that has cooled down and taken on the shape of a sharply outlined continent on a map. In the context of 20th century art, this type of bronze sculpture inevitably reminds us of the work of an artist like Alberto Giacometti. His silhouettes of the human figure bore reference to the relationship between figure and space in much the same way. Giacometti's work also dealt with the synthesis of the figurative and the abstract. Stag Beuys's specific choice of material for casting the Hirsch, namely aluminium, resulted in the figure of the animal obtaining a lustre of its own with its matt silvery gleam. The Hirsch shines out against the darker remainder of the ensemble. "The stag stands there and the stag is not a human being. For the realms of normal consciousness, it is a part of nature. But how will nature continue to have power when every future form of nature will be one made by man?" (Joseph Beuys) The form ...

• published: 30 Aug 2008
• views: 4682
• author: Christiaan Tonnis