Joseph Beuys’ Iphigenie/Titus Andronicus of 1985 is a relic of Beuys’ infamous performance piece enacted at Frankfurt Theatre am Turm for the 1969 Experimenta 3. Described as an aktion, the artist sported a shiny, floor-length fur coat and shared the stage with a white horse whose various hoof noises were amplified on a steel plate using a microphone. Beuys made repetitive movements on stage; he paced back and forth, occasionally fed the horse sugar cubes, imitated the flight of birds, and most memorably played a large set of orchestral cymbals to awaken a slumbering audience. Meanwhile, an off-stage tape emitted pre-recorded excerpts from two significant classical texts: Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus of the late sixteenth century and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1779 Iphigenie auf Tauris, from which the performance takes its name.
The two texts oppose each other: the overwhelmingly excessive violence in Titus Andronicus is juxtaposed with Goethe’s rendition of the Greek mythological character Iphigenie, proposing that only through people admitting the truth can the cycle of violence that haunts history be put to rest. To demonstrate this concept visually, one side of the stage remained empty, symbolising Titus, while the artist and the white horse inhabited the side belonging to Iphigenie – with Beuys periodically spitting lumps of fat over the border. Through this striking audio-visual experience, the performance explored the metaphysical dichotomy between realism and idealism, brutality and bravery, violence and peace, sacrifice and redemption.
The performance of Iphigenie/Titus Andronicus took place in the societal debris resulting from the aftermath of the Second World War, the psychological ramifications of which were still clutching the minds of German citizens – including Beuys himself. The overt violence between the characters in Titus Andronicus – from stabbing, beheading, cannibalism, to live burial – is a conspicuous reference to the atrocities and cruelty of recent Nazi crimes. That the play is the antithesis of Goethe’s text – placing heavy emphasis on the moral high ground of those who face up to their actions and forgive their past mistakes – by extension, therefore, the performance held a mirror to contemporary German society, impelling viewers to acknowledge the open wound that is the country’s early-twentieth century history.
"Why anyway should the term 'art' refer to the work of painters and sculptors? That is simply a restriction that never existed before."
—Joseph Beuys
Beuys’ Iphigenie/Titus Andronicus was conceived at a pivotal time when performance art was declaring its independence from classical theatre. “Everyone an artist” is the clearest formulation of Beuy’s intention; he sought to widen the concept of what art is, instead focusing on the process of living itself as a creative act. Not only did this ideology bid farewell to the narrow definitions of what art could be; more importantly, it implied an intensified feeling for life. In 1970 Beuys stated: “We have to create a new base for art because the base of present art has become terribly restricted during the course of the political development of the last 100 years. It has become the territory of a few intellectuals, far from the life of people.” His new methodology was labelled Social Sculpture, a term used to describe this concept of art and it’s potential to transform society.
Through the physical enactment in Iphigenie/Titus Andronicus, Beuys not only presented a transcendental piece of art referencing past and present, violence and redemption; he became art, inextricably linked and fundamental to its conception. This work memorialises Beuys’ triumphant attempt to lift German society out of its own cultural amnesia while proposing a new method that liberated creativity from the oppressive stronghold of elitism and erudition.
