Oil paint and felt on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-beuys-747" aria-label="More by Joseph Beuys" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Beuys</a>
Felt Action
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
abstraction
emotional states and conditions
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
gestural
movement
non-representational
protection - felt
symbols and personifications
<p><span>Felt Action</span> 1963<span> </span>is an abstract work on paper made with brown oil paint the artist called Braunkreuz or ‘Brown cross’ (its name referring to both its colour and the shape of a cross onto which Beuys first applied the paint) and a neatly-cut rectangle of grey felt. The ground of this drawing consists of two irregular sheets of overlapping cream paper, the slightly smaller of which sits on top. The felt is positioned in the top right corner of this sheet of paper, and contrasts with the wildly expressive and biomorphic shape of the Braunkreuz paint, which occupies two-thirds of the sheet. The movement of the brush is the ‘action’ referred to by the work’s title, along with the artist’s gestures and the direction in which the paint spreads across the paper. The oil-based brown house paint was both brushed on in repetitive strokes to build up the opaque, curved mass, and splattered on in drips and splodges from a distance to create the feathered energy around its edges. The curator Ann Temkin has explained the connection between the two materials of this drawing, writing:</p>
paper unique oil paint felt
4 July 2009 – 27 September 2009
2009-09-27
4 July 2009 – 27 September 2009
2009-09-27
2009-07-04
De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill on Sea, UK)
http://www.dlwp.com/
2009-07-04
ARTIST ROOMS 2009: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
1 April 2010 – 27 September 2010
2010-09-27
1 April 2010 – 27 September 2010
2010-09-27
2010-04-01
Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (Glasgow, UK)
http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk
2010-04-01
ARTIST ROOMS 2010: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
26 October 2013 – 1 February 2014
2014-02-01
26 October 2013 – 1 February 2014
2014-02-01
2013-10-26
Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum (Worcester, UK)
2013-10-26
ARTIST ROOMS 2013: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
5 June 2015 – 6 September 2015
2015-09-06
5 June 2015 – 6 September 2015
2015-09-06
2015-06-05
Timespan (Sutherland, UK)
http://www.timespan.org.uk/
2015-06-05
ARTIST ROOMS 2015: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
13 October 2017 – 21 January 2018
2018-01-21
13 October 2017 – 21 January 2018
2018-01-21
2017-10-13
Leeds Art Gallery (Leeds, UK)
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery/
2017-10-13
ARTIST ROOMS 2017: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
Felt Action
support: 647 × 434 mm
frame: 923 × 731 × 48 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Felt Action</i> 1963<i> </i>is an abstract work on paper made with brown oil paint the artist called Braunkreuz or ‘Brown cross’ (its name referring to both its colour and the shape of a cross onto which Beuys first applied the paint) and a neatly-cut rectangle of grey felt. The ground of this drawing consists of two irregular sheets of overlapping cream paper, the slightly smaller of which sits on top. The felt is positioned in the top right corner of this sheet of paper, and contrasts with the wildly expressive and biomorphic shape of the Braunkreuz paint, which occupies two-thirds of the sheet. The movement of the brush is the ‘action’ referred to by the work’s title, along with the artist’s gestures and the direction in which the paint spreads across the paper. The oil-based brown house paint was both brushed on in repetitive strokes to build up the opaque, curved mass, and splattered on in drips and splodges from a distance to create the feathered energy around its edges. The curator Ann Temkin has explained the connection between the two materials of this drawing, writing: </p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>In Beuys’s universe, the role of the warming, sculptural nature of <i>Braunkreuz</i> closely relates to that of felt, an analogy made clear in many of the <i>Braunkreuz</i> drawings that evoke large fuzzy masses of that material, as well as in works such as <i>Felt Action</i>, of 1963, that incorporate into the <i>Braunkreuz</i> drawing an actual felt fragment. Many of the works sharing the spirit of <i>Braunkreuz</i> employ an opaque gray paint more suggestive of felt.<br/>(Temkin 1993, p.40.)</blockquote>
<p>The texture and materiality of the felt and of Braunkreuz therefore situates collages such as <i>Felt Action</i> within Beuys’s wider sculptural practice as experiments in two-dimensional layering. Felt played a central role in the imposing narrative and mythology of the artist’s life and work, stemming from one, possibly apocryphal, event of 1943: Beuys’s German fighter plane crash landing in the Crimea, and his subsequent rescue by the nomadic Tartar people of the region. The plane crash was detailed in the catalogue for his 1979 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Beuys recounted: ‘I remember voices saying “Voda” (Water), then the felt of their tents, and the dense pungent smell of cheese, fat and milk. They covered my body in fat to help it regenerate warmth, and wrapped it in felt as an insulator to keep the warmth in.’ (Quoted in Tisdall 1979, pp.16–17.) Whether an embellished account or not, this origin story for felt places the material in direct and insistent contact with the body. The protective properties of felt can be seen more explicitly in a vitrine work from the following year, <i>Model for a Felt Environment </i>1964 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-model-for-a-felt-environment-ar00619" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00619</span></a>), which displays coiled strips of grey felt in preparation for some unknown, potentially calamitous, event. <i>Felt Action</i>, while more abstract, also alludes to the body through the very physical mass of Braunkreuz paint, and the title’s connection to Beuys’s performances, for which he used the term ‘action’. Like felt, Braunkreuz is a material very much related to the difficult relationship between Beuys, his past and his country’s past. The curator Jane Alison has suggested that:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>
<i>Braunkreuz </i>is an expression of both that which Beuys aspired to and that which he wanted to exorcise. The Christian cross, The Red Cross and the “Rosy Cross” of Mystic Rosicrucianism … are all referenced, whilst militaristic and Nazi symbolism is suggested too … the German context meant that for Beuys, colour was one way of addressing the personal and collective trauma, loss and shame of the war and its horrors. It was impossible for Beuys to make a simple gesture toward the immaterial without first addressing the reality of the German situation.<br/>(Alison 2005, p.17.)</blockquote>
<p>Beuys began performing his actions through an association with the experimental anti-art movement Fluxus in 1963 – the year <i>Felt Action </i>was produced. The term ‘action’ also appears in the titles of many of Beuys’s works on paper, including <i>Tunnel (Cathode Rays) Felt Room Action </i>1964 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-tunnel-cathode-rays-felt-room-action-ar00118" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00118</span></a>), further strengthening the links between his paper output and his three-dimensional works. <i>Felt Action </i>does not relate to a specific action event; rather, it reflects the artist’s conviction that energy and movement – matter in a state of flux – could transfer between mediums and create a cohesive, integrated artistic practice. </p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Caroline Tisdall, <i>Joseph Beuys</i>, exhibition catalogue, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979.<br/>Ann Temkin, ‘Joseph Beuys: Life Drawing’, in Ann Temkin and Bernice Rose (eds.), <i>Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys</i>, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1993, pp.27–71, reproduced p.199.<br/>Jane Alison (ed.), <i>Colour After Klein: Rethinking Colour in Modern and Contemporary Art</i>, exhibition catalogue, Barbican Art Gallery, London 2005, reproduced p.59.</p>
<p>Stephanie Straine<br/>February 2011</p>
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Summary
2012-06-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Beuys began to perform his 'actions' in public in 1963 in connection with the Fluxus group. This painting does not appear to relate to a particular 'action' but includes a piece of felt, one of the artist's 'signature' materials which he used in both sculptures and 'actions'. His 'action' of 1964, 'The Chief', involved the artist being wrapped in a blanket of felt. The figure shown here is depicted with sweeping brushstrokes and drips of Braunkreuz oil paint, suggesting that the intended 'action' involved movement.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
abstraction emotional states and conditions emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities gestural movement non-representational protection - felt symbols and personifications