Joseph Beuys: The Green Tent

PAV showcases “The Green Tent (Das Grüne Zelt)”, curated by Marco Scotini. Placing itself as the third chapter of an ideal trilogy, it finishes the cycle of exhibitions with which the PAV intended to reconstruct a possible genealogy of the relationship between the artistic practices and the ecological conscience during the 1970s in Europe.

After the exhibitions “Earthrise” (2015) and “ecologEast” (2016), this project will focus on the activity of one of the most recognized artists from the second half of the last century: Joseph Beuys, putting a particular emphasis on his involvement with the political institutions and his response to the threats of environmental crisis.

The exhibition, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of Beuys’ death, wants to become a tribute to the author of the “social sculpture,” within the institution founded by Piero Gilardi, who was the first to write about Beuys in Italy, as early as in 1967.

Despite the consistent amount of critical literature available about the German artist’s activity, only in rare circumstances can we find examples where the romantic and spiritual matrix of the word “nature” has been used in a political sense, using the term ecology. All this in spite of the fact that Beuys’ perspective was strongly militant in that direction, leading him to chair the constitution of the German Greens movement that saw him, even if for a short time, as a candidate for the parliament.