Observations placeholder

The Artistic Alchemy of Joseph Beuys – Dr David Adams

For Beuys, the whole point of Honey Pump was its integration with the human beings participating in the Free International University events. These discussions on solving social problems-not the elaborate physical apparatus-were the real Honey Pump as far as he was concerned. By reference to a 1974 postcard "multiple" artwork, as well as a diagram drawn by Beuys during a 1975 interview with Jean-Pierre Van Tieghem, both titled Honey Is Flowing in All Directions, we may conclude that Beuys used honey for the social warmth forces of its origin in the bee colony, forces that he hoped would help dissolve or resolve hardened dualisms in modern humanity's worldview and achieve a "real human implosion” that could renew western civilization and advance human spiritual evolution. In the interview diagram, he mentions the dualisms of subject and object, body and spirit, perception and conception.