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# Finally, a Joseph Beuys Documentary
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/joseph-beuys-documentary-trailer-exclusive/
- Published: 2017-11-21T22:22:15.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:11:30.000Z
- Description: A new trailer shared exclusively with Hyperallergic gives a glimpse of Beuys, a new documentary about the legendary conceptual artist.
- Author: Benjamin Sutton
- Tags: Art, Documentary, Film Forum, Joseph Beuys, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

[https://g.hyperallergic.com/content/media/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/beuys-documentary-trailer.mp4](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/media/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/beuys-documentary-trailer.mp4?ref=hyperallergic.com)

Folks in the know hold the German conceptual artist [Joseph Beuys](https://hyperallergic.com/104760/joseph-beuys-process-1971-1985-at-rooster-gallery/) in similar standing to Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol as a key figure in expanding the field of art to include, potentially, just about anything. But beyond the contemporary art cognoscenti, he is far from a household name. That may change with the new documentary [*Beuys*](https://www.kinolorber.com/film/beuys?ref=hyperallergic.com), by director Andres Veiel, which will have a theatrical run at New York’s [Film Forum](https://filmforum.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) cinema beginning January 17, 2018.

The above trailer, premiering exclusively on Hyperallergic, gives a sense of the film’s expansive approach to the fedora-wearing artist’s philosophy and practice, including audio recordings and archival footage that’s never been seen before. Veiel’s film seeks to offer historical context for Beuys’s path-breaking work, from his conceptually crucial [*Multiples*](https://hyperallergic.com/190090/over-500-joseph-beuys-multiples-go-on-rare-view-in-nyc/) to iconic performances like “[I Like America and America Likes Me](https://vimeo.com/5904032?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (1974), for which he lived in a gallery with a coyote for three days. It also draws on John Halpern’s 1988 film [*Joseph Beuys / TRANSFORMER*](http://www.beuysfilm.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com), which tracks the artist’s preparation for his 1979 retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York.

“Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art \[to\] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power,” Beuys [once said](http://www.atisma.com/spiritart/beuys%5Fsocial.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com). “Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline.” The documentary *Beuys* will not only offer a psychological portrait of the man, but chronicle the many ways he sought to reverse the effects of our repressive social systems — and how his breakthroughs continue to influence artists today.

![Poster for <em>Beuys</em> (2017) (courtesy Kino Lorber)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/beuys-documentary-poster-blue.jpg)

Poster for Beuys (2017) (courtesy Kino Lorber)

![Poster for Beuys (2017) (courtesy Kino Lorber)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/beuys-documentary-poster.jpg)

Poster for Beuys (2017) (courtesy Kino Lorber)

Beuys *opens on January 17, 2018 at* [*Film Forum*](https://filmforum.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *(209 West Houston Street, Soho, Manhattan) for a two-week run.*