Florian Pesth wrote:

> Well I never understood art, which only tries to provocate the viewer. 
> Maybe Beuys is more than that, I don't know.
> For the record: I really like some abstract art such as Miro or 
> Hundertwasser. But I only like art, which doesn't need a theoretical 
> explanation to give the viewer something. In german there's the saying 

> think that's the precondition for good art.
> 
And I like Richter and Kiefer :)  Nothing is ever pure.  I must admit 
that the Beuys retrospective came at a time when the fact that European 
artists had wrested the lead from New York was just starting to really 
sink in.  It's hard to explain but the chauvinism favouring American and 
especially New York art was so internalized I didn't realize I was 
subject to it.  I still don't think that Beuy's was as innovative as the 
hype would suggest, but to the extent that he did add something new, it 
flew in the face of the tenets that I had learned*.  Consequently I saw 
his work as largely derivative and when new, just wrong.  It may have 
been that I sort of sacrificed Beuys to my prejudice in order to allow 
myself to accept the invasion of the next generation of European artists.

-Jim

*What seems to be new in Beuys is the combination of serious 
expressionistic content with conceptual art means.

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