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Joseph Beuys «and in us ... under us ... flooded»
Joseph Beuys, «and in us ... under us ... flooded», 1965
Photograph: Hanns Sohm | ©


 Joseph Beuys
«and in us ... under us ... flooded»

Joseph Beuys spends the duration of a 24-hour action titled 'und in uns ... unter uns ... landunter' ('and in us ... under us ... flooded') on top of a small white box. There he performs a sequence of individual actions that are repeated cyclically in the course of time. The various objects he uses include a wedge of fat, a double spade, and a recording tape onto which he articulates sounds and text fragments in compliance with a score, and then plays them back. His religious intensity fascinates the audience, prompting Bazon Brock to report that after 19 hours 'there were 5 people watching Vostell, everyone watching Beuys, nobody watching me.' Rolf Jährling similarly recounts: 'Towards dawn, both actors and audience wearied – except for Beuys, who was the only one to stay awake for 24 hours.'