Joseph Beuys - Manresa. A spiritual geography

Joseph Beuys - Manresa. A spiritual geography

Presentation conference of the book that explores the keys to the connection between the German artist Joseph Beuys and the city of Manresa by the curator of the Year Joseph Beuys in Manresa Pilar Parcerisas and Llorenç Bonet (Tenov Books)

Joseph Beuys is one of the great artists of the 20th century and radically transformed contemporary art. This book, focused on his action Manresa, will be the first monographic publication on this work and describes it as one of the key pieces to understand the symbols and the world of Beuys, putting it in relation to the capital of the Jesuits and making a reinterpretation of the values of Saint Ignatius in a contemporary key. In addition to coinciding with the Ignatian ephemeris of 2022, next year will also mark the centenary of the birth of Joseph Beuys (2021), which will guarantee a special interest in the work of this artist.

The facts
On December 15, 1966, Joseph Beuys performed a performance entitled Manresa at the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf, with the collaboration of the two flow artists Henning Christiansen and Björn Nörgaard. Along with Eurasia (1966), it is one of the most important actions of the first stage of the German artist, which defined his later work. Manresa highlights the importance of Ignatius of Loyola for Beuys, who has gone down in history as a "shaman artist".
On December 15, 1994 there was a tribute and continuation (in the words of Harald Szeemann and Pilar Parcerisas) of this performance with the title of Manresa Central Station, carried out by the two collaborators of Beuys in the initial action : Christiansen i Nörgaard. This action took place in the city of Manresa, giving importance to the original place where Ignatius of Loyola had the revelations that led him to write his Spiritual Exercises, and that interested Beuys to the point of placing Manresa as one of the cardinal points of its own geography.

The book
This book explains the interpretive keys and the relationship of the first performance with the Ignatian world and the city of Manresa and, at the same time, presents for the first time all the existing documentation of the action that took place in the city in 1994.
The book provides enough elements to explain how the world of Ignatius of Loyola was important to Joseph Beuys, and reinterprets the values of Saint Ignatius in a contemporary way, placing Manresa within the world of contemporary art criticism.

The book is published by Tenov Books.