Waves and Commons

Beuys didn’t come up with the idea that everyone is an artist. He
got there by experiencing his own personal transformation in a
crisis, a process he felt was sculptural. That same sense of
immediacy applies to his views of democracy. Instead of reading
political theory he looked to the world around him. And what he
saw made him look for examples of how to make democracy more
democratic.


Beuys’ encounters and collaboration with people in the Italian
Lotta continua movement gave him many concrete examples of what
could be achieved if people worked to enact democracy in small
reliable ways. Having access to the media was a key objective of
the movement in Italy. In the early 1970s, Beuys witnessed the
rise of the free radio movement, which followed not long after in
Germany and elsewhere in the world, firsthand.


In this bonus feature episode of the series, written and produced
by the artist, writer and radio specialist Anna Bromley, we
travel from Germany to Israel, Italy, Hungary, South Africa and
Turkey and hear from some of the key radio activists in the
movement. Many of them look back on a long history in the
movement. Even younger activists have strong sense of the history
behind them.


For all information on the anniversary programme „beuys 2021. 100
years of joseph beuys“ visit: https://beuys2021.de/