Joseph Beuys Hildegard Weber. Hommage à Beuys '86

The installation Hommage à Beuys ‘86 substitutes the conventional forms of museal commemoration with the idea of the living archive. Designed immediately after the artist’s death on 23 January 1986 and completely reconfigured by the author in 2021 for this presentation, this photographic monument dedicated to Joseph Beuys is composed of nearly two hundred photographs by Hildegard Weber taken over the years from her first encounter with Beuys in 1960. 

In contrast to the earlier versions of this Homage, recently acquired by the Centre Pompidou, and because Beuys’s work is now much more widely discussed than in 1986, Hildegard Weber has left out the documentary and offers his final reading of the photographic ensembles that make up the installation. Instead, the new presentation of Hommage à Beuys ‘86 focusses on representing the artist in dialogue with his oeuvre, offering a striking perspective of his work from the very beginning of his career. Although Weber does not glorify either the artist or his work, the quality of her insight and her prints endow them with a certain aura. The rich and abundant display in this space resonates deeply with the plenitude of the neighbouring room, where the felt rolls of Plight, the last piece Beuys made before his death, are installed.