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The Artistic Alchemy of Joseph Beuys – Dr David Adams

Early in his artistic career Beuys created a number of sculpted crosses and crucifixes, usually in bronze, and throughout his career the sign of the cross was a key element in his work. On the one hand, Beuys related the cross to the materialized, four-square, space-time coordinate consciousness of the modern scientific world view (also mentioning the crosshair used in gun sights for more accurate killing). On the other hand, he identified the cross, or at least the rose cross, with an expanded understanding of christ. Looking back on his early career, he commented.,

"It became clear to me that what is Christian is not reached through depictions of the figure of Christ."
"The Christian element is ... connected with the powers of nature, with the planetary movements, with cosmic dimensions."