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Quote by Joseph Beuys

“I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time. The oak is especially so because it is a slowly growing tree with a kind of really solid heartwood. It has always been a form of sculpture, a symbol for this planet.”

Quote by Joseph Beuys

Author

Joseph Beuys was a German artist known for his social-political art and action art. His work often addressed environmental, social, and political issues, and had a profound impact on contemporary art with his unique artistic practice and ideas. more

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“The only hope I had was when (in his youth)I saw one day a photograph of a sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, a German sculptor of expressionistic style. This was perhaps the only example, Lehmbruck, between my sixteenth to nineteenth years in which I saw a possibility for art to be principally of interest to innovate some things, instead of writing a very boring, naturalistic repetition of what is already done by nature.”

Writing Years Art Done Interest Saws Style Example Possibility Youth One Day Photograph Boring Repetition Sculpture Sculptors

Author:Joseph Beuys

“Our notions of what a human being is problematically depend on there being two coherent genders. And if someone doesn't comply with either the masculine norm or the feminine norm, their very humaness is called into question.”

Ifs Humans Two Human Beings Depends Notion Gender Feminine Norm Masculine

Author:Judith Butler

“Peace is a certain resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war.”

War Peace Terrible Satisfaction Resistance

Author:Judith Butler

“Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act... a "doing" rather than a "being". There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results. If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”

Ifs Doe Said Character Turns Sex Results Behinds Identity Expression Consequence Gender Distinction Constructs Being There Gender Identity Sex And Gender

Author:Judith Butler

“Formerly, leaders of states practiced realism, but did not honor it. With them morality was violated, but moral notions remained intact. The modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is compelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with a system of morality.”

States Facts Leader Moral Modern Honor Morality Notion Bounds Crowds Addresses Governors Realism Compelled Owing Moralist

Author:Julien Benda

“Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.”

Men Has Beens Ideas Matter Today Able Spiritual Law Names Justice Christianity Divine Masters Concepts Practicals Acquire Attributes Equipment Pragmatism Disinterested

Book:The Treason of the Intellectuals

Source: The Treason of the Intellectuals

“The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt.”

Modern Contempt Romanticism Harshness

Author:Julien Benda

“The modern moralists extol ... the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life.”

Modern Activity Practicals Cult Defiance Disinterested Moralist

Book:The Treason of the Intellectuals

Source: The Treason of the Intellectuals

“Teachers ... preach "the superiority of the intelligence"; but they preach it because in their opinion it is the intelligence which shows us the actions required for our interests, i.e. from exactly the same passion for the practical.”

Shows Action Passion Interest Opinion Teacher Practicals Superiority

Book:The Treason of the Intellectuals

Source: The Treason of the Intellectuals

“Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.”