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Item: Schlitten

Joseph Beuys

1969

Object, 36 x 91 x 34 cm.
Materials: wooden sled, felt, belts, flashlight, fat and rope

Collection: Hall Collection, NY, USA.

The sled makes a frequent appearance in the oeuvre of Beuys. Fascinated by this early form of transportation, Beuys explained that ‘[t]he most direct kind of movement over the earth is the sliding of the iron runners of the sleds….’1

The sled also plays an important part in Beuys’s account of being rescued by Crimean Tatars following a plane crash in the Second World War. After his crash Tatars moved him on a sled, while he recovered from his injuries.

Sled contains a flashlight, a lump of fat and a blanket – objects used for orientation, sustenance and warmth in extreme conditions. 

1 Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 190.

Edition: 50 + 5 exhibition copies, numbered, not signed

Galerie Réne Block, Berlin

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The M HKA is a museum for contemporary art, film and visual culture in its widest sense. It is an open place of encounter for art, artists and the public. The M HKA aspires to play a leading role in Flanders and to extend its international profile by building upon Antwerp's avant-garde tradition. The M HKA bridges the relationship between artistic questions and wider societal issues, between the international and the regional, artists and public, tradition and innovation, reflection and presentation. Central here is the museum's collection with its ongoing acquisitions, as well as related areas of management and research.

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