Joseph Beuys To Mikis Theodorakis, 1982

Joseph Beuys participated in documenta in Kassel five times between 1964 and 1982, as well as representing Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and again in 1980. A major retrospective of his work opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1979 and he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, the following year. The artist increased his commitment to political and ecological activism during this period, and founded the German Green Party in 1980. He was awarded the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize in Duisburg shortly before his death in 1986 and his acceptance speech included a concise summation of his view of Social Sculpture: ‘Everything is sculpture!’