Mitchell-Innes & Nash inaugurates the largest exhibition of Joseph Beuys multiples from the collection of Reinhard Schlegel. Feturing over 500 art pieces, this showcase it is the most significant collection of Beuys multiples ever shown in New York. From the early 1960s to his death in 1986, Beuys produced a total of 572 multiples.
Conceived as a new form of editioned artwork that expanded the horizons of reproductive art-making, the multiples allowed the German artist to affect social change through art. Collaborating with a range of publishers and experimenting freely with a wide array of formats and materials, Beuys aimed to create art pieces cheap to acquire that could have easily circulate among a broad public, in order to spread his ideas at greater range. At the heart of Beuys’s practice was the desire of liberating art from an elitist constraint. His multiples are antennae, veichles that convey a message of communication encouraging discussion and debate. Ranging from small-editioned objects to mass-produced political flyers and postcards, in materials as different as metal, wood or found objects, the selection on show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash includes iconic pieces such as Sled (1969), Felt Suit (1970) and Capri Battery (1985).
Each one has a symbolic meaning and it encapsulates a specific moment in Beuys‘ life or work : an idea, a performance, a lecture, an exhibition. As a group they provide a near complete picture of both his personal history and artistic career, faithful to his belief in the unity of art and life.