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Joseph Beuys and “The Pack” at Edinburgh College of Art

Artist: Demarco, Richard, HRSA

Joseph Beuys and “The Pack” at Edinburgh College of Art

The camper van and sledges comprise Beuy’s 1969 artwork The Pack (Staaliche Museen Kassel, Neue Galerie) “The Pack exudes the chaotic and dynamic…

The camper van and sledges comprise Beuy’s 1969 artwork The Pack (Staaliche Museen Kassel, Neue Galerie)
“The Pack exudes the chaotic and dynamic energy which Beuys considered essential in order to bring change in society. Twenty-four sledges, resembling a pack of dogs, tumble from the back of a VW van. Each sledge carries a survival kit made up of a roll of felt for warmth and protection, a lump of animal fat for energy and sustenance, and a torch for navigation and orientation. Beuys commented: ‘This is an emergency object: an invasion by the pack. In a state of emergency the Volkswagen bus is of limited usefulness, and more direct and primitive means must be taken to ensure survival.’

This strongly autobiographical work refers directly to Beuys’s plane crash over the Crimea
during the Second World War. He often described being rescued by a band of Tartars who coated his body with fat and wrapped him in felt. Whether real or mythical, the story shows the symbolic importance of these materials in Beuys’s mind. It also suggests a fable of death and rebirth in which Beuys is purged, perhaps of his wartime guilt, and brought back to life by a nomadic people.” The work was exhibited in the exhibition ” Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments, Tate Modern:, 4 February – 2 May 2005. (The description is taken from the Tate website http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/joseph-beuys-actions-vitrines-environments)

The Pack was included in an exhibition titled Strategy: Get Arts, mounted in August 1970 by the Richard Demarco Gallery at Edinburgh College of Art for the 1970 Edinburgh International Festival, in collaboration with the Dusseldorf Kunsthalle, which featured 35 Dusseldorf based artists, including beuys and Richter. This represented Beuys second visit to Scotland. His first in May 1970 and also at the invitation of Demarco, had taken him to Rannoch Moor and Argyll.(vide Walters, Victoria: Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing (image repro p.85 credited to Demarcoshowing the same scene but in reverse and without Beuys). For details of the exhibition, vide; The Demarco Collection and Archive: An Introduction, Demarco Archive Trust Ltd, 2009, pp13-16, also p.17)

© Demarco, Richard HRSA