NAFPS Forum

Has anybody here an opinion on Joseph Beuys? He is seen as the 'Shaman' amongst german artists. This is in part due to a performance called "I like america and america likes me", where he shared a room with a Coyote, which is said to besacred to native americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys#.22I_Like_America_and_America_Likes_Me.22_.28performance.2C_1974.29

At least two of Beuys works of art were accidentally destroyed, because they were not recognised. One was  a "fat corner", 10 pounds of Butter smeared in a room corner. His heirs were paid a compensation of 40.000 € ...

Joseph Beuys has been dead for 25 years. That alone makes him pretty irrelevant to this forum, and I see no indication that he tried to cash in on phony spirituality, American Native or otherwise. Maybe the moderators could delete this thread to conserve bandwidth?

As you can see there's a reluctance to criticize those who've passed on, unless you can show the things they did in life somehow harmed people to this day. I had to look him up. I doubt even most American artists have heard of him. He may have minsterpreted some things, but that's about it. (Coyote is most often held up as someone you shouldn't be like, for example. He's an object of mockery.) I don't see any intent by him to harm or mislead.

Ok, thank you. Sorry if I said s.th stupid.