Joseph Beuys exhibition at The Broad 100 native trees will be planted in Elysian Park

By Jessica Gelt

The works and environmental activism of German contemporary artist Joseph Beuys will be featured this fall at the Broad as part of the Getty’s PST Art program, which this year focuses on the connections between art and science. The exhibition, “Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature,” will include a reforestation effort that involves planting 100 native trees in Elysian Park and five at the Kuruvungna Village Springs in West L.A.

The Broad curator Sarah Loyer, who organized the show with Beuys scholar Andrea Gyorody, said Beuys was “one activist among many who was sounding the alarm” on climate change decades ago, and “unfortunately, it’s more relevant than ever now.”

Beuys, who defies categorization as an artist, died in 1986 at the age of 64. He was in the midst of a monumental work of land art called “7000 Oaks” in Kassel, Germany. The project consisted of laying 7,000 black basalt stones in a pile outside the Fridericianum museum. A stone was removed from the heap and placed beside a tree each time one was planted. “7000 Oaks” took five years to complete, and Beuys’ son set the final stone beside the last tree after his father’s death, Loyer said. The oaks are now an integral part of Kassel’s ecology and stand as a symbol of regeneration.

“Social Forest: Oaks of Tovaangar,” created in partnership with North East Trees, Gabrielino/Tongva archaeologist Desireé Reneé Martinez and artist Lazaro Arvizu Jr., extends Beuys’ ideas and practice into the current day.

“We’re really excited to be bringing this project to Los Angeles,” said Loyer. “It starts with Beuys’ seed of an idea, and then it jumps off and thinks about ways that this idea can be relevant to Los Angeles today as opposed to Kassel, Germany, in 1982.”

The Beuys exhibition at the Broad, which opens Nov. 14, will feature more than 400 works of art that represent Beuys’ practice and his dedication to environmental justice and democracy.