Editing Joseph Beuys (section)

===The artist as shaman===

According to Cornelia Lauf (1992),{{Full citation needed|date=December 2022}} "in order to implement his idea, as well as a host of supporting notions encompassing cultural and political concepts, Beuys crafted a charismatic artistic persona that infused his work with mystical overtones and led him to be called "shaman" and "messianic" in the popular press."

Beuys had adopted [[shamanism]] not only as a presentation mode of his art but also in his own life. Although the artist as a shaman has been a trend in modern art ([[Picasso]], [[Gauguin]]), Beuys is unusual in that respect as he integrated "his art and his life into the shaman role."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ulmer|first=Gregory|title=Applied Grammatology: Post(e)-Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys|isbn=978-0-8018-3257-4|year=1985|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|page=230}}</ref> Beuys believed that humanity, with its turn on rationality, was trying to eliminate emotions and thus eliminate a major source of energy and creativity. In his first lecture tour in America he espoused that humanity was in an evolving state and that as "spiritual" beings we ought to draw on both our emotions and our thinking as they represent the total energy and creativity for every individual. Beuys described how we must seek out and energize our spirituality and link it to our thinking powers so that "our vision of the world must be extended to encompass all the invisible energies with which we have lost contact."<ref>{{cite book|last=Tisdall|first=Caroline|title=Joseph Beuys|year=2010|publisher=Thames & Hudson|page=37|isbn=978-0-500-54368-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media | people=Halpern, John (Director) | date=15 April 1988 | title=[Joseph Beuys / TRANSFORMER] | medium=Television sculpture | location=New York City | publisher=I.T.A.P. Pictures | url=http://www.beuysfilm.com/}}</ref>

Beuys saw his performance art as shamanistic and psychoanalytic to both educate and heal the general public.

"It was thus a strategic stage to use the shaman's character but, subsequently, I gave scientific lectures. Also, at times, on one hand, I was a kind of modern scientific analyst, on the other hand, in the actions, I had a synthetic existence as shaman. This strategy aimed at creating in people an agitation for instigating questions rather than for conveying a complete and perfect structure. It was a kind of psychoanalysis with all the problems of energy and culture."<ref>{{cite book|last=Rosental|first=Norman|title=Joseph Beuys: The Secret Block for a Secret Person In Ireland|year=1999|publisher=Art Books Intl Ltd|author2=Bastian, Heiner}}</ref>

Beuys's art was considered both instructive and therapeutic – "His intention was to use these two forms of discourse and styles of knowledge as pedagogues." He used shamanistic and psychoanalytic techniques to "manipulate symbols" and affect his audience.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ulmer|first=Gregory|title=Applied Grammatology: Post(e)-Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys|year=1985|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|pages=238–240|isbn=978-0-8018-3257-4}}</ref>
In his personal life, Beuys had adopted a felt hat, a felt suit, a cane and a vest as his standard look. The imagined story of him being rescued by Tartar herdsmen perhaps is an explanation for his adopting materials such as felt and fat.

Beuys experienced severe depression between 1955 and 1957. After recovering, he observed at the time that "his personal crisis"{{Quote without source|date=December 2022}} caused him to question everything in life, and he called the incident "a shamanistic initiation."{{Quote without source|date=December 2022}} He saw death not only in its inevitability for people, but also death in the environment, and through his art and his political activism,  he became a strong critic of environmental destruction. He said at the time, "I don't use shamanism to refer to death, but vice versa – through shamanism, I refer to the fatal character of the times we live in. But at the same time I also point out that the fatal character of the present can be overcome in the future."{{Quote without source|date=December 2022}}