Posted inOpinion

The Nazi Ties of Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys is a canonical postwar artist, but was he really as progressive and enlightened as we’ve come to believe, and as he led us to think? A new biography of the artist, written by German-born Swiss author Hans Peter Riegel, kicks up the age-old debate about the separation of the artist and the art by contending that Beuys was actually a dedicated follower of the occultist and racist ideas propagated by philosopher Rudolf Steiner, and that he hung out with quite a few former Nazis.