For Joseph Beuys, the preservation of nature was a special concern throughout his life. "Art is the only form in which environmental problems can be solved," he said in an interview with ZEIT magazine in 1978. This conviction was not only evident in long-term agroecological projects such as "7000 Oaks" (1982-87), when he planted 7000 hardwoods in Kassel for documenta 7 and more than doubled the tree population there. The early work "Urobjekt – Erdtelephon" from 1967 already warns of the lost connection between man and nature: No connection under this number? Who is the sender and who is the receiver remains unclear in this ambiguously legible sculpture. The Paper Future Labs by Haus des Papiers shows posters from the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Kunstmuseum Bonn, which advertise their collections with the "earth telephone".

The performance artist and sculptor Joseph Beuys was born in Krefeld in 1921. From 1946 to 1952 he studied painting and sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and was later a master student of Ewald Mataré. From 1961 to 1972 he held a professorship at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, from which he was dismissed because of his commitment to the admission of all students without a numerus clausus and because of the repeated occupation of the secretariat. Behind this was his understanding of an "expanded concept of art". Beuys dealt with questions of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy. He died in Düsseldorf in 1986. In 1979 the Guggenheim Museum in New York showed a retrospective of his work.

Joseph Beuys, Plakat Hamburger Kunsthalle (Erdtelephon), 1992, Offset auf Papier, 59 x 84 cm, courtesy CESA Collection, Berlin, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024

Joseph Beuys, Plakat Kunstmuseum Bonn (Urobjekt. Erdtelephon), 1997, Offset auf Papier, 84 x 59 cm, courtesy CESA Collection, Berlin, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024