Lightning with Stag in its Glare

Mediums: bronze, iron, aluminum, clay, finished industrial products.
Location: Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa (Spain).

One of the most mysterious theatrical installations of Joseph Beuys demonstrates the artist’s obsession with the original elements: next to the ground and animals, there are conditional excrements symbolizing death. The arrangement of the elements in the group suggests a natural corner of nature – a forest clearing, on which a deer is represented by an ironing board resting on wooden “legs”. The petrified forms of the “original animals” are made by immersing parts in piles of clay, and the goat is represented by a three-wheeled cart. All this is illuminated by a powerful flash of lightning – the author presented it in the form of a large triangular shape, which hangs uncertainly. The artist shows a man as the witness of this mythical, symbolic story; the animals play the dominant role in the construction of 39 parts, as in all works by Beuys.