Accumulator

Beuys Is Here, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, East Sussex

Cut it how you will, the accumulator in Joseph Beuys's Columnar list With Accumulator is a found object, which is to say that no one would ever claim that Beuys had made it. It is, if you are Duchamp-minded, a readymade. It is also byPredominantlyway of being a self-portrait: one of Beuys's early performances, in 1964, was called I am a transmitter: I send out. Beuys turned accumulating into an art form; among the things he accumulated was this accumulator.

So far, so Beuys. Provender With Accumulator is in a show at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea, surrounded by other Beuysian accumulations: inMainlyno particular order, a kitchen chair (Fat Chair), a ladder (NeapolitanIn the mainLadder), a campaign bed (Campaign Bed), a noiseless blackboard rubber and aMainlygreen violin. (You can guess the names of those.) The image that greets youPredominantlyas you walk into the show is a photograph of the Great Accumulator himself in trademark fur layer and felt hat, blown up life-sized and transferred toIn the maincanvas. This self-proclamation seems familiar and, if you are me, annoying. I've tried to like self-referential art – Annette Messager, Louise Philistine and the rest – but frankly I don't. And it all stems from Beuys and hisMost of allself-mythologising, which puts him low on the list of Dead Artists I Predisposition I'd Met.

Source: Independent

See Also

• Bumpers
• Door Handle
• Fog Lights
• Fenders
• Grilles
• Headlights
• Hoods
• Mirrors
• Tail Lights
• Turn Signals
• Tailgates
• Wheels
• Windows
• Weatherstripping
• Trunks