A chair with fat

Mediums: wood, ghee.
Location: The Museum of the State of Hesse, Darmstadt (Germany).

Joseph Beuys, according to the unanimous opinion of art critics, created a new artistic language. The melted lamb fat, along with felt and honey supposedly used to treat his wounds (a myth created by the artist himself), are the first and central images of this language. An ordinary wooden chair depicted with light paints serves as a “pedestal” for melted lard lined with a beveled pyramid. This material was important for Boyce – it symbolizes salvation and security. According to the artist’s mythology, it was they and honey who brought the wounded Joseph back to life in the winter of 1943 (the plane on which he served as a machine gunner was shot down over the Crimean steppe).