Abstract
This study not only clarifies Joseph Beuys’ ambiguous attitude towards
“Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art), a key concept of Richard Wagner’s theoretical
thought, but it also reconstructs the art critical discourse on the tripartite relationship
between Beuys, Wagner, and Nazism in the 1980s.
Although Beuys had created works obviously intended to commemorate the victims
of the Holocaust, he scarcely made any explicit comment on Nazis or their devastating
crimes until 1980. In this year, American critics pointed out this neglected aspect in
Beuys’ oeuvre in his first major exhibition in America. It is noteworthy that many of
these same critics heretofore regarded Beuys as a successor of Wagner, whose works
were supposedly bound with the Nazi ideology. Yet, Beuys attempted to distinguish his
concept of art from the totalitarian image of “Gesamtkunstwerk.” At the same time, he
recast this term in order to describe the socio-political art practices that dealt with his
contemporary situation in West Germany.
This paper analyzes American critical reviews of Beuys’ New York exhibition, his
understanding of the concept of “Gesamtkunstwerk,” and, finally, his understanding of
this term through an examination of “The Capital Room” (1980).
