First Major French Monograph on Joseph Beuys Published by Mamco / Les Presses du réel

Jean-Philippe Antoine's 'La Traversée du 20e siècle, Joseph Beuys, l'image et le souvenir' is the first comprehensive monograph in French on the German artist Joseph Beuys, published by Mamco / Les Presses du réel. The book explores the relationship between Beuys's life and work through his modes of figuration, offering an unprecedented genealogy of his oeuvre that reveals its aesthetic ambition and political stakes. Antoine's rigorous approach settles controversies around Beuys's work by questioning certain sources, examining the historical context, and studying his work in light of James Joyce and Marcel Duchamp. The monograph illuminates how Beuys, through his concept of 'social sculpture' and work of remembrance, defined the foundations of a political art in the aftermath of the 20th century's greatest trauma. The book is amply illustrated and addresses the question: 'How does the 'shamanic' ambition to heal contemporary Western societies articulate with Beuys's biography and a theoretical program aimed at rethinking the conditions of possibility for art and democracy after the great collapses of the era?'