Joseph Beuys, Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt, 1966

Art should not need to be explained. The silent video is a documentation of one of the most significant performance artworks by Joseph Beuys in Dusseldorf in 1965. At the beginning of the performance Beuys locked the gallery doors from the inside, leaving the gallery-goers outside. They could observe the scene within only through the windows. With his head entirely coated in honey and gold leaf, he began to explain pictures to a dead hare. Whispering to the dead animal on his arm in an apparent dialog, he processed through the exhibit from artwork to artwork. Occasionally he would stop and return to the center of the gallery, where he stepped over a dead fir tree that lay on the floor. After three hours the public was let into the room. Beuys sat upon a stool in the entrance area with the hare on his arm and his back to the onlookers. He ironically celebrated the ritual of “explaining art” with an action that was, for his viewers, effectively silent.