Editing Joseph Beuys (section)

=== Academia and public (1960–1975) ===
In 1961, Beuys was appointed professor of monumental sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His students were artists [[Anatol Herzfeld]], [[Katharina Sieverding]], [[Jörg Immendorff]], [[Blinky Palermo]], [[Peter Angermann]], [[Walter Dahn]], {{ill|Johannes Stüttgen|de||fr}}, Sigmar Polke and Friederike Weske. His youngest student was Elias Maria Reti who began to study art in his class at the age of 15.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.eliasmariareti.de/Biografie|title=Elias Maria Reti – Künstler – Biografie|website=www.eliasmariareti.de|language=de|access-date=18 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181218193410/http://www.eliasmariareti.de/Biografie|archive-date=18 December 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Beuys entered wider public consciousness in 1964, when he participated in a festival at the Technical College Aachen which coincided with the 20th anniversary of an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Beuys created a performance or action ({{lang|de|Aktion}}) which was interrupted by a group of students, one of whom attacked Beuys, punching him in the face. A photograph of the artist, nose bloodied and arm raised, was circulated in the media. It was for this 1964 festival that Beuys produced an idiosyncratic [[Curriculum vitae|CV]], which he titled ''Lebenslauf/Werklauf'' (Life Course/Work Course). The document was a self-consciously fictionalised account of the artist's life, in which historical events mingle with metaphorical and mythical speech (he refers to his birth as the 'Exhibition of a wound;' he claims his Ulysses Extension to have been carried out 'at James Joyce's request' – impossible, given that the writer was long dead by 1961). This document marks a blurring of fact and fiction that was to be characteristic of Beuys's self-created persona.

Beuys manifested his social philosophical ideas in abolishing entry requirements to his Düsseldorf class. Throughout the late 1960s, this renegade policy caused great institutional friction, coming to a head in October 1972 when Beuys was dismissed from his post. That year, he found 142 applicants who had not been accepted whom he wished to enroll under his teaching. Beuys and 16 students subsequently occupied the offices of the academy to force a hearing regarding their admission. They were admitted by the school, but the relationship between Beuys and the school was irreconcilable.<ref name="ReferenceA">Durini, Lucrezia De Domizio. ''The Felt Hat: Joseph Beuys A Life Told''. Milano, Charta, 1997</ref> He again occupied the university offices with a group of students; the police were called and he was escorted laughing from the building. This was depicted in a photograph which was used to create a 1973 silkscreen print with the title ''Democracy Is Funny''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Democracy is Funny [Demokratie ist lustig]| website=The multiples of Joseph Beuys | date=1973|publisher=Pinakothek der Moderne|location=Munich|url=http://pinakothek-beuys-multiples.de/product/democracy-is-funny/}}</ref> Shortly after, he was dismissed from his post. The dismissal, which Beuys refused to accept, produced a wave of protests from students, artists and critics. Although now without an institutional position, Beuys continued an intense schedule of public lectures and discussions, and became increasingly active in German politics. Despite this dismissal, the walkway on the academy's side of the Rhine is named for Beuys. Later in life, Beuys became a visiting professor at various institutions (1980–1985).
[[File:BeuysAchberg78.jpg|thumb|Joseph Beuys on his lecture "Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler – Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus" photographed by {{Interlanguage link|Rainer Rappmann|de}} in Achberg, Germany, 1978]]