Berlin: Galerie Block Berlin, [1965] (09), 14,8×15,4 cm. Extremely scarce and interesting piece of ephemera in the form of a voting ballot for mock elections held by/at Galerie René Block in September of 1965. According to a communique issued by the gallery, that was the time (“The Deadline is Up”) for electing a new ‘self-regulated’ government and refraining from voting partisan (“For 20 years the world judged us wrongly, for 20 years the world was prejudiced (…) We were silent for 20 years and forfeited our right to self-determination.”). The declaration goes even further stating that “The German problem is a European problem / The German problem is an African problem / The German problem is an Asian problem / The German problem is an Australian problem / The German problem is an American problem / The German problem is an Antarctic problem”. The ‘radicality’ of the declaration is underscored by “A word of consolation to German governments” that “if you don’t have a head you can’t be hanged either” (supposedly) quoted from René Block’s Trostwörter V.1. An underdocumented event/action part of which most probably should be read through the lens of the ‘insurgent’ Fluxus fraction of Beuys-Vostell activities. The full list of 18 candidates reads: Joseph Beuys, Winfred Gaul, Karl Horst Hödicke, Herbert Kaufmann, K.P. Brehmer, Gerhard Richter, René Block, Wolf Vostell, Tomas Schmit, Konrad Lueg, Stanley Brouwn, Sigmar Polke, Bazon Brock, Ludwig Gosewitz, Manfred Kuttner, Nam June Paik, Hans Joachim Dietrich, Charlotte Moorman. There are 18 positions to be filled (including “president”) plus two with no boxes for ticking for Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Inter-German Relations. This ballot predates the official involvement of Beuys in politics by a good two years. [“The turn to politics in Beuys, trajectory is clear and well known, beginning with the founding of the German Student Party in 1967 in response to the setting up of the Marxist SDS and the student upheavals following the killing of Benno Ohnesorg by the police in Berlin during a demonstration against the Shah of Iran earlier in the year.” (Nisbet, 2001)] ·
condition: Fragile thin paper folded once vertically. Clean. In VG+ condition.
