Elina Brotherus, Joseph Beuys and gallery owner René Block

Potato Planting - Transformations

16 September 2023–25 February 2024

The well-known Finnish photo and video artist Elina Brotherus (born 1972 in Helsinki) deals with iconic motifs from art history as well as with the reinterpretation of FLUXUS actions and event scores, the recordings of performances. In this context, the artist has also restaged Joseph Beuys‘ action Kartoffelernte (Potato Harvest), which originally took place in 1977 in front of the gallery of the important FLUXUS and Beuys companion, René Block.

From the view of a new generation of artists, Elina Brotherus looks at the performances, life and self-dramatisation of her predecessor. In her exploration of Beuys, she shifts perspectives and finds a feminine way of approaching the gestures of the iconic German artist.

Gallery owner, museum director and international curator, René Block, connects the two artistic personalities of Beuys and Brotherus who belong to different generations. He exhibited, collected and supported both at an early stage of their work through his gallery.

During various sojourns in Museum Schloss Moyland and the Joseph Beuys Archive, Elina Brotherus researched Beuys and Block, their actions, images and correspondence, as well as Beuys‘ long-time performance photographer, Ute Klophaus. At the end of her research, new photographs and video installations at places frequented by Beuys in the region as well as new works with René Block emerged. These specific new productions will be shown for the first time at Museum Schloss Moyland.

The exhibition catalogue is published by Kehrer-Verlag and includes texts by Ina Brandes, Thomas Heyden, Antje-Britt Mählmann and Eugénie Shinkle as well as interviews with René Block, Elina Brotherus and Emil Schult (Kraftwerk). With approx. 240 pages and 120 illustrations, the exhibition is comprehensively documented. Book launch: November 2023 for Paris Photo.

The exhibition is sponsored by: