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Joseph Beuysb. 1921, Krefeld, Germany; d. 1986, Düsseldorf Biography

Terremoto, 1981. Typesetting machine with fat, Italian flag wrapped in felt, chalk onnine blackboards, metal container with fat and lead type, recorder with cassette, andprinted brochure, 6 feet 8 inches × 12 feet 5 3/4 inches × 16 feet 1 inches (203.2 ×349.9 × 490.2 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 91.3960 © 2013Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: David Heald

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Terremoto means earthquake in Italian; more specifically, on November 23,1980, it meant the destruction of a small city on the volcanic heights aboveNaples. At the invitation of a Neapolitan cultural center, Beuys and severalother artists made works to commemorate the lost lives and other effects ofthe disaster. The Guggenheim Museum's Terremoto (1981), constructed inRome at roughly the same time, is a pendant to the Neapolitan work.Although its title and date tie it specifically to the Neapolitan earthquake, italso refers to a contemporary political situation.

This installation reiterates Beuys's public support of independence for thisregion of Italy. An Italian flag, wrapped in felt, is draped against an ancienttypesetting machine that was once used in the production of the newsletterof a leftist political party, Lotta Continua (The fight continues). Grease hasbeen smeared on the keys of the machine, rendering them dysfunctional. Ablackboard on the floor leans against a small oil drum, as if elemental lessonswould suffice to educate people to the inequities of capitalism. Moreblackboards form an altar around the printing machine. They bear alchemicalsymbols and chalk drawings of skulls, which might represent the victims ofthe quake.

The manifestos glued to the printing machine refer to the Action Third Way, atheory of political activism that Beuys helped to develop in the late 1970s; itargues for an economic system based neither on the values of Westerncapitalism nor on the monopolies of the state created by 20th-centuryinterpretations of Marxism. One important element of the Third Way is anemphasis on ecology. Beuys alludes to this in Terremoto by opposing

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technology with organic substances, and printed texts with handwrittenones. He developed this further in the larger environmental installationsdating from the last years of his career, which are among his most far-reaching works, enormous in scope, magnificent in their intention, andinvolving hundreds of participants. They center around a single theme: his callfor a change in thinking that develops out of personal understanding ratherthan from technological advances.

Cornelia Lauf