title: House of Fabergé

text: Gustav Fabergé monument was opened in Pärnu on 3 January 2015 in the year of the bicentenary of his birth. The bronze statue is a gift to the city from Alexander Tenzo, the founder of TENZO jewellery house. Composition authors Alexander Tenzo and Vladislav Yakovsky. Sculptor Eugeny Burkov. The statue was mounted with support of the City Government of Pärnu and Pärnu Fabergé Society represented by Tiina Ojaste and Toomas Kuter.


title: Rice production in India

text: India is the world's second-largest producer of rice, and the largest exporter of rice in the world. Production increased from 53.6 million tons in FY 1980 to 120 million tons in FY2020-21.


title: Rice production in India

text: Rice is one of the chief grains of India. Moreover, this country has the largest area under rice cultivation. As it is one of the principal food crops. It is, in fact, the dominant crop of the country. India is one of the leading producers of this crop. Rice is the basic food crop and being a tropical plant, it flourishes comfortably in a hot and humid climate. Rice is mainly grown in rain-fed areas that receive heavy annual rainfall. That is why it is fundamentally a kharif crop in India. It demands a temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius and above, and rainfall of more than 100  cm. Rice is also grown through irrigation in those areas that receive comparatively less rainfall. Rice is the staple food of eastern and southern parts of India.


title: Rice production in India

text: Rice can be cultivated by different methods based on the type of region. But in India, traditional methods are still in use for harvesting rice. The fields are initially plowed and fertilizer is applied which typically consists of cow dung, and then the field is smoothed. The seeds are transplanted by hand and then through proper irrigation, the seeds are cultivated. Rice grows on a variety of soils like silts, loams and gravels. It can tolerate alkaline as well as acid soils. However, clayey loam is well suited to the raising of this crop. Actually, the clayey soil can be easily converted into the mud in which rice seedlings can be transplanted easily. Proper care has to be taken as this crop thrives if the soil remains wet and is underwater during its growing years. Rice fields should be level and should have low mud walls for retaining water. In the plain areas, excess rainwater is allowed to inundate the rice fields and flow slowly. Rice raised in the well-watered lowland areas is known as lowland or wet rice. In the hilly areas, slopes are cut into terraces for the cultivation of rice. Thus, the rice grown in the hilly areas is known as dry or upland rice. The yield of upland rice per hectare is comparatively less than that of wet rice.


title: Rice production in India

text: The regions cultivating this crop in India are distinguished as the western coastal strip, the eastern coastal strip, covering all the primary deltas, Assam plains and surrounding low hills, foothills and Terai region- along the Himalayas and states like West Bengal, Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, eastern Madhya Pradesh, northern Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. India, being a land of the eternal growing season, and the deltas of the Ganges-Bramhaputra(in West Bengal), Kaveri River, Krishna River, Godavari River, Indravati River and Mahanadi River with a thick set-up of canal irrigation like Hirakud Dam and Indravati Dam, permits farmers to raise two, and in some pockets, even three crops a year. Irrigation has made even three crops a year possible. Irrigation has made it feasible even for Punjab and Haryana, known for their baked climate, to grow rice. They even export their excess to other states. Punjab and Haryana grow prized rice for export purposes. The hilly terraced fields from Kashmir to Assam are ideally suited for rice farming, with age-old hill irrigational conveniences. High yielding kinds, enhanced planting methods, promised irrigation water supply and mounting use of fertilizers have together led to beneficial and quick results. It is the rain fed-area that cuts down average yields per hectare.


title: Rice production in India

text: In some states like West Bengal, Assam, and Orissa two crops of rice are raised in a year. The Winter season in northwestern India is extremely cold for rice. Rice is considered as the master crop of coastal India and in some regions of eastern India, where during the summer and monsoon seasons, both high temperature and heavy rainfall provide ideal conditions for the cultivation of rice. Almost all parts of India are suitable for raising rice during the summer season provided that water is available. Thus, rice is also raised even in those parts of western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana where low-level areas are waterlogged during the summer monsoon rainy season.


title: Rice production in India

text: Winter rice crop is a long duration crop and summer rice crop is a short duration crop. At some places in the eastern and southern parts of India, rice crop of short duration is followed by the rice crop of long duration. Winter rice crop is raised preferably in low-lying areas that remain flooded mainly during the rainy season. Autumn rice is raised in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. Summer, autumn, and winter rice crops are raised in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and Orissa. Summer rice crop is raised on a small scale and a small area. However, the winter rice crop is actually the leading rice crop accounting for a major portion of the total Hectare under rice in all seasons in the country. Moreover, in the last few years, several steps to augment yield per hectare were taken up very seriously at all levels. India ranks fourth in the production of wheat & second in the production of rice in the world. Favorable Geographical Condition for Wheat Cultivation: In India, wheat is a winter crop. Wheat requires a moderately cool climate with moderate rain. In India, it is grown in winter. It needs a temperature of 10 degrees C to 15 degrees C for its cultivation. It thrives well at an average temperature of 16-degree C. Warm and sunny weather is essential at the time of ripening.


title: Rice production in India

text: India is the leading exporter of the Basmati Rice to the global market. In the financial year 2018-19, India exported around 4.4 million metric tons of Basmati rice worth USD 4.7 billion.


title: Rice production in India

text: The Indian states with the highest areas of Basmati rice under production are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Western Uttar Pradesh.


title: Rice production in India

text: According to APEDA, "any rice other than Basmati Rice is named as Non-Basmati rice." In 2018-19, India exported 7.5 million metric tons of Non-Basmati rice worth USD 3 billion. The main export destinations were Nepal, Benin, Senegal, Bangladesh and Guinea.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The Fiat 124 Sport Spider is a convertible sports car marketed by Fiat for model years 1966–1985. Designed by and manufactured at the Italian "carrozzeria" Pininfarina factory, the monocoque, front-engine, rear drive "Sport Spider" debuted at the November 1966 Turin Auto Show with styling by Tom Tjaarda.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Fiat later marketed the car as the Spider 2000 (1979–1982). After being retired by FIAT, Pininfarina continued the production of the model under its own brand as Pininfarina Spider Azzurra for the North American market and Pininfarina Spidereuropa for the European market for three more years, from August 1982 until 1985.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The Fiat 124 Sport Spider was designed by Pininfarina and styled in-house by Tom Tjaarda. The 124 Sport Spider, 124 Sport Coupé and 124 sedan share much of their running gear—and, in the case of the coupé, platforms. The Sports Spider uses a shorter platform along with a shorter wheelbase, and in contrast to the Pininfarina-styled and manufactured spider, Fiat designed and manufactured the coupé in-house.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The succession of build series of the 124 were designated internally as AS, BS, BS1, CS and CSA. AS models had a torque tube transmitting power to the rear wheels; this crack-prone design was replaced by a trailing-arm rear axle with the second series (BS) during 1969—which was manufactured alongside the AS for the first six months of 1970. The early AS cars also have smaller taillights, while the BS receives a mesh grille and black-rimmed gauges inside. In July 1970 the 1.6-liter BS1 appeared; this model is recognizable by its twin humps on the bonnet and bumper overriders. The CS series Spider arrived during 1972. Also in 1972, a sports version of the Spider debuted, required for type-approval of its rally version, and was marketed as 124 CSA (C-Spider-Abarth). The vehicle has a capacity of . In three years, Fiat manufactured less than 1000 CSA models, which were intended for sale to individual clients.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The car was manufactured by Fiat (with a Pininfarina body) in Turin until October 1981, when Pininfarina took over manufacture in their San Giorgio Canavese plant. Serial numbers started over from zero, while the eleventh digit in the Vehicle Identification Number was switched from an 8 to a 5. The Fiat Spider 2000 ended manufacture in July 1982, and after the Italian summer holidays production of Pininfarina-badged cars commenced in its place.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The four-cylinder engine used in the spider and coupé is a double overhead cam, aluminum crossflow head version of the sedan's pushrod unit. It started in 1966 with a capacity of 1438 cc, progressively increasing to 1608 cc in 1970 (although this was reduced to 1,592 cc in 1973), 1,756 cc in 1974 and finally 1,995 cc in 1979. The Fiat Twin Cam engine was designed by ex-Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi. Bosch fuel injection replaced the previously used Weber carburetors midway through 1980. In 1981 and 1982, Fiat USA, Inc. partnered with Legend Industries to create approximately 700 turbo models for US markets. There was also a supercharged model called "Volumex" offered toward the end of production; it was sold only in Europe, where it cost 35% more than a regular, fuel-injected Spidereuropa. This family of engines remained in production into the 1990s, giving it one of the longest production-runs in automotive history. The double overhead cam (DOHC) version of the engine was the first mass manufactured DOHC to utilize reinforced rubber timing belts, an innovation that would come into nearly universal use in the decades after its introduction. Its derivatives powered race cars such as the FIAT 131 Mirafiori, 124 Special T, Lancia Beta Montecarlo, Delta Integrale and many others.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Suspension is conventional by unequal length wishbones and coil over damper at the front and by coil sprung live rear axle at the rear which is located by a transverse link (Panhard rod) and two pairs of forward extending radius rods to react to braking and acceleration forces, and to control axle wind-up.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The coupé and spider were marketed in the Canada and US beginning in 1968. In 1969, the Spider featured four-wheel disc-brakes, double overhead cams, hesitation wipers, steering-column mounted lighting-controls, radial-ply tyres and a five-speed manual transmission. An optional three-speed automatic transmission from General Motors was available from 1979 through 1985 for North America as well as Japan. The Spider's convertible top was known for its simplicity of use—allowing a seated driver to quickly raise or lower the top. When the engine was upgraded to two litres, the model was renamed the "Fiat 2000 Spider." For the 1980 model year a version with a catalytic converter and Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection was introduced for California and optional in the other 49 states. For 1981 this engine, with , became standard fitment in North America.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Fiat subsequently stopped marketing the Spider and the X1/9—to have their marketing assumed by their respective "carrozzerie". In Europe, the Ritmo Cabrio was also marketed by Bertone rather than Fiat themselves. In the US, Fiat turned over marketing and support of the Spider and the X1/9 to International Automobile Importers, Inc., headed by Malcolm Bricklin.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The Fiat Abarth 124 Rally is a homologated version of the 124 Sport Spider, known also as "124 Abarth Stradale", introduced in November 1972.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: It received FIA homologation in the special grand touring cars (group 4) racing class, and replace the 1.6-litre Fiat Sport Spider rally cars which were presently being campaigned. At the time 124 had already won the 1972 European Rally Championship at the hands of Raffaele Pinto and Gino Macaluso.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The 124 Rally was added to the Sport Spider range, which included the 1600 and 1800 models; the first 500 examples produced were earmarked for the domestic Italian market.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Amongst the most notable modifications over the standard spider there were independent rear suspension, engine upgrades, lightweight body panels, and a rigid hard top.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: In place of the usual rear solid axle, there is independent suspension from lower wishbones, the original trailing arms, an upper strut and an anti-roll bar. At the front a radius rod on each side was added to the standard double wishbones.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The Abarth-tuned type "132 AC 4.000" 1.8-litre, twin-cam engine was brought from the standard 118 to by replacing the standard twin-choke carburettor with double vertical twin-choke Weber 44 IDFs, and by fitting an Abarth exhaust with a dual exit muffler. The 9.8:1 compression ratio was left unchanged.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The transmission is the all-synchronised five-speed optional on the other Sport Spider models, and brakes are discs on all four corners.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Despite the four-point roll bar fitted, kerb weight is , roughly less than the regular 1.8-litre Sport Spider.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Engine bonnet, boot lid and the fixed hard top are fibreglass, painted matt black, the rear window is perspex and the doors aluminium. Front and rear bumpers were deleted and replaced by simple rubber bumperettes. A single matte black wing mirror was fitted.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: Inside centre console, rear occasional seats, and glovebox lid were eliminated; while new features were anodised aluminium dashboard trim, a small three-spoke leather-covered Abarth steering wheel, and Recaro corduroy-and-leather bucket seats as an extra-cost option.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The car carries Fiat badging front and rear, Abarth badges and "Fiat Abarth" scripts on the front wings, and Abarth wheel centre caps.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: In 1971 the 124 Spider was prepared for the World Rally Championship when Abarth became involved with its production and development. Abarth designer Ing. Colucci was responsible for getting the 124 Spider into Group 4 rally trim. Over this period the Abarth Spider was relatively successful with wins at the 1972 Hessen Rally, Acropolis Rally, 1973 Polish Rally, 19th on the 1973 RAC rally and seventh to mostly the Alpine Renaults on the 1973 Monte Carlo Rally. The Spider continued to perform with first, second and third in the 1974 eighth Portuguese TAP Rally, sixth in the 1974 1000 Lakes, fourth in the 1975 Monte Carlo Rally and also with Markku Alén driving the spider to third place. By 1976 the days of 124 rallying were numbered due to the appearance of the Fiat-Abarth 131.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The Spider was sold from 1966 for European and US markets, but from 1975 until 1981 they were produced only for the US market. In 1981 they were reintroduced in Europe until the end of production in 1985. Almost 200,000 spiders alone had been manufactured, with 75% for the US market. There were nine models of the spider, the AS, BS, BS1, CS, CSA (Abarth), CS1, CS2, CS0, and DS.


title: Fiat 124 Sport Spider

text: The 124 name was revived in 2016 through a joint venture with Mazda, using the new Mazda MX-5 platform. After considering possibly marketing the result as an Alfa Romeo Spider, the car was brought to the market as a Fiat. It was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2015 and made available in late 2016. The engine is a turbocharged 1.4 MultiAir with 160 HP (119 kW) from the Fiat range.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (English: "I am crazy about Prem"), is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy drama film by Sooraj Barjatya and produced by Rajshri Productions. The film is a remake of the 1976 film "Chitchor" and features Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan in lead roles. It had a worldwide release on 27 June 2003, and was a critical disaster at the box office.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: However, Bachchan's performance was well received and earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 49th Filmfare Awards.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Roshan's and Bachchan's characters, as with the protagonists of every Sooraj Barjatya film until "Uunchai", are named Prem.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Sanjana (Kareena Kapoor) is a vivacious young woman. She has just graduated from college and is not happy about the concept of arranged marriage, much to the dismay of her mother Susheela (Himani Shivpuri).


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Roopa, Sanjana's older sister, who has settled in the U.S., calls up her parents to inform them that her friend, Prem, has seen Sanjana's photo and is interested in getting to know her. Prem is a wealthy businessman, settled in the U.S. with his parents. Sanjana is not pleased with this development but she eventually agrees and meets Prem Kishen (Hrithik Roshan).


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: At first, Sanjana can't stand the enthusiastic and outgoing Prem, and plays a series of pranks on him. As they begin to spend more time together, they eventually fall in love, much to the delight of her parents who adore him too. He returns to the U.S. for his job and promises to come back. However, Roopa informs the family that Prem could not make it, so someone else was sent in his place.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Sanjana's confused parents find out that there was a mix-up. The man who arrived was not the wealthy N.R.I. Prem Kumar, whom Sanjana was meant to meet. Instead, he is Prem Kishen, an employee in Prem Kumar's company.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Prem Kumar (Abhishek Bachchan) arrives in India and meets Sanjana and begins to have feelings for her. Sanjana's mother slowly tries to push her towards Prem Kumar, though her father (Pankaj Kapur) has reservations because he knows how much Sanjana and Prem Kishan are in love.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: Prem Kumar and Sanjana begin spending time together and become friends due to their common interests, but Sanjana remains committed to Prem Kishen. Prem Kishan returns to Sanjana's house, where he is treated coldly by her mother and witnesses Prem Kumar's feelings for Sanjana. He reveals the truth to her – that his boss was supposed to marry her and not him. Sanjana is devastated.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: A marriage is arranged for Sanjana and Prem Kumar by their respective mothers. Prem Kishen's loyalty to his boss and his boss' happiness forces him to leave, while a heartbroken Sanjana agrees only for the sake of her parents. Eventually, Prem Kumar learns the truth and unites Sanjana with Prem Kishen.


title: Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon

text: The music of this film was composed by Anu Malik and all songs sung by K. S. Chithra. All the lyrics were penned by Dev Kohili. According to the Indian trade website "Box Office India", with around 16,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's seventh highest-selling.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art movement known as Fluxus and was a key figure in the development of Happenings.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys is known for his "extended definition of art" in which the ideas of social sculpture could potentially reshape society and politics. He frequently held open public debates on a wide range of subjects, including political, environmental, social, and long-term cultural issues.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Joseph Beuys was born in Krefeld, Germany, on 12 May 1921, to Josef Jakob Beuys (1888–1958), a merchant, and Johanna Maria Margarete Beuys née Hülsermann (1889–1974). Soon after his birth, the family moved from Krefeld to Kleve, an industrial town in Germany's Lower Rhine region, close to the Dutch border. Beuys attended primary school at the "Katholische Volksschule" and secondary school at the "Staatliches Gymnasium Cleve" (now the "Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gymnasium"). While in school he developed skills in drawing and took lessons in piano and cello. Other interests included the natural sciences, as well as Nordic history and mythology. By his own account, when the Nazi Party staged their book-burning in Kleve on 19 May 1933 in his school courtyard, he salvaged the book "Systema Naturae" by Carl Linnaeus "... from that large, flaming pile".


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1936, Beuys was a member of the Hitler Youth; the organization at that time included a large majority of German children and adolescents, and later that year membership became compulsory. He participated in the Nuremberg rally in September 1936. He was 15 years old at the time.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Given his early interest in natural sciences, Beuys had considered a career in medical studies, but in his last years of school he became interested in pursuing a career in sculpture, possibly influenced by pictures of Wilhelm Lehmbruck's sculptures. In around 1939 he began working part-time at a circus, where his responsibilities included posturing and taking care of animals. He held the job for about a year. He graduated from school in the spring of 1941, having successfully earned his "Abitur".


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Although he finally opted for a career in medicine, in 1941, Beuys volunteered for the "Luftwaffe", and began training as an aircraft radio operator under the tutelage of Heinz Sielmann in Posen, Poland (now Poznań). They both attended lectures on biology and zoology at the University of Posen, at that time a Germanized university. During this time he began to consider pursuing a career as an artist.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1942, Beuys was stationed in the Crimea and was a member of various combat bomber units. From 1943 onward, he was deployed as rear-gunner in a Ju 87 "Stuka" dive-bomber, initially stationed in Königgrätz, later moving to the eastern Adriatic region. Drawings and sketches from this time have been preserved, and his characteristic style is evident in this early work.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: On 16 March 1944, Beuys's plane crashed on the Crimean Front close to Znamianka, then Freiberg Krasnohvardiiske Raion. Drawing from this incident, Beuys fashioned the myth that he was rescued from the crash by nomadic Tatar tribesmen, who wrapped his broken body in animal fat and felt and nursed him back to health:


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "Had it not been for the Tartars I would not be alive today. They were the nomads of the Crimea, in what was then no man's land between the Russian and German fronts, and favoured neither side. I had already struck up a good relationship with them and often wandered off to sit with them. 'Du nix njemcky' they would say, 'du Tartar,' and try to persuade me to join their clan. Their nomadic ways attracted me of course, although by that time their movements had been restricted. Yet, it was they who discovered me in the snow after the crash, when the German search parties had given up. I was still unconscious then and only came round completely after twelve days or so, and by then I was back in a German field hospital. So the memories I have of that time are images that penetrated my consciousness. The last thing I remember was that it was too late to jump, too late for the parachutes to open. That must have been a couple of seconds before hitting the ground. Luckily I was not strapped in – I always preferred free movement to safety belts ... My friend was strapped in and he was atomized on impact – there was almost nothing to be found of him afterwards. But I must have shot through the windscreen as it flew back at the same speed as the plane hit the ground and that saved me, though I had bad skull and jaw injuries. Then the tail flipped over and I was completely buried in the snow. That's how the Tartars found me days later. I remember voices saying 'Voda' (Water), then the felt of their tents, and the dense pungent smell of cheese, fat, and milk. They covered my body in fat to help it regenerate warmth, and wrapped it in felt as an insulator to keep warmth in."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Records state that Beuys remained conscious, was recovered by a German search commando, and that there were no Tatars in the village at the time. Beuys was brought to a military hospital where he stayed for three weeks, from 17 March to 7 April. It is consistent with Beuys' work that his biography would have been subject to his own reinterpretation; this particular story has served as a powerful origin myth for Beuys's artistic identity, and has provided an initial interpretive key to his use of unconventional materials, amongst which felt and fat were central.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Despite prior injuries, he was deployed to the Western Front in August 1944, assigned to a poorly-equipped and trained paratrooper unit. He received a gold Wound Badge for having been wounded in action over five times. On the day after the German unconditional surrender (8 May 1945), Beuys was taken prisoner in Cuxhaven and brought to a British internment camp from which he was released three months later, on the 5th of August. He returned to his parents who had moved to a suburb of Kleve.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: After returning to Kleve, Beuys met local sculptor Walter Brüx and painter Hanns Lamers, who encouraged him to take up art as a full-time career. He joined the Kleve Artists Association, which had been established by Brüx and Lamers. On 1 April 1946, Beuys enrolled in the monumental sculpture program at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. Initially he was assigned to the class of Joseph Enseling, who had a more traditional, representational focus, but he managed to change his mentor after three semesters, joining the small class of Ewald Mataré in 1947, who had rejoined the academy the previous year, after having been banned by the Nazis in 1939. The anthroposophical philosophy of Rudolf Steiner became an increasingly important basis for Beuys's philosophy. In his view it is "...an approach that refers to reality in a direct and practical way, and that by comparison, all forms of epistemological discourse remain without direct relevance to current trends and movements." Reaffirming his interest in science, Beuys re-established contact with Heinz Sielmann, and assisted with a number of nature- and wildlife documentaries in the region between 1947 and 1949.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1947 Beuys, along with other artists (including Hann Trier), founded the group 'Donnerstag-Gesellschaft' ("Thursday Group"). The group organised discussions, exhibitions, events and concerts between 1947 and 1950 in Alfter Castle.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1951, Mataré accepted Beuys into his master class where he shared a studio with Erwin Heerich, that he kept until 1954, a year after graduation. Nobel laureate Günter Grass recollects Beuys's influence in Mataré's class as shaping "a Christian anthroposophic atmosphere". He read Joyce, impressed by the "Irish-mythological elements" in his works, the German romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schiller, and studied Galileo and Leonardo, whom he admired as examples of artists and scientists who are conscious of their position in society and who work accordingly. Early shows include participation in the Kleve Artists Association annual exhibition in Kleve's Villa Koekkoek, where Beuys showed aquarelles and sketches, a solo show at the home of and in Kranenburg as well as a show in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys finished his education in 1953, graduating at age 32 as master student from Mataré's class. He had a modest income from a number of craft-oriented commissions: a gravestone and several pieces of furniture. Throughout the 1950s, Beuys struggled both financially and from the trauma of his wartime experiences. His output consisted of drawings and sculptural work. Beuys explored a range of unconventional materials and developed his artistic agenda, exploring metaphorical and symbolic connections between natural phenomena and philosophical systems. Often difficult to interpret in themselves, his drawings constitute a speculative, contingent and hermetic exploration of the material world, myth and philosophy. In 1974, 327 drawings, the majority of which were made during the late 1940s and 1950s, were collected into a group entitled The Secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland (a reference to Joyce), and exhibited in Oxford, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Belfast.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1956, artistic self-doubt and material impoverishment led to a physical and psychological crisis, and Beuys entered a period of serious depression. He recovered at the house of his most important early patrons, the van der Grinten brothers, in Kranenburg. In 1958, Beuys participated in an international competition for an Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial. His proposal did not win and his design was never realised. In 1958, Beuys began a cycle of drawings related to Joyce's "Ulysses". Completed in around 1961, the six exercise books of drawings would constitute, Beuys declared, an extension of Joyce's seminal novel. In 1959, Beuys married Eva Wurmbach. They had two children, Wenzel (born 1961) and Jessyka (born 1964).


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1961, Beuys was appointed professor of monumental sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His students were artists Anatol Herzfeld, Katharina Sieverding, Jörg Immendorff, Blinky Palermo, Peter Angermann, , , Sigmar Polke and Friederike Weske. His youngest student was Elias Maria Reti who began to study art in his class at the age of 15.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys entered wider public consciousness in 1964, when he participated in a festival at the Technical College Aachen which coincided with the 20th anniversary of an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Beuys created a performance or action () which was interrupted by a group of students, one of whom attacked Beuys, punching him in the face. A photograph of the artist, nose bloodied and arm raised, was circulated in the media. It was for this 1964 festival that Beuys produced an idiosyncratic CV, which he titled "Lebenslauf/Werklauf" (Life Course/Work Course). The document was a self-consciously fictionalised account of the artist's life, in which historical events mingle with metaphorical and mythical speech (he refers to his birth as the 'Exhibition of a wound;' he claims his Ulysses Extension to have been carried out 'at James Joyce's request' – impossible, given that the writer was long dead by 1961). This document marks a blurring of fact and fiction that was to be characteristic of Beuys' self-created persona.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys manifested his social philosophical ideas in abolishing entry requirements to his Düsseldorf class. Throughout the late 1960s this renegade policy caused great institutional friction, coming to a head in October 1972 when Beuys was dismissed from his post. That year he found 142 applicants who had not been accepted whom he wished to enroll under his teaching. Beuys and 16 students subsequently occupied the offices of the academy to force a hearing regarding their admission. They were admitted by the school, but the relationship between Beuys and the school was irreconcilable. The dismissal, which Beuys refused to accept, produced a wave of protests from students, artists and critics. Although now without an institutional position, Beuys continued an intense schedule of public lectures and discussions, and became increasingly active in German politics. Despite this dismissal, the walkway on the academy's side of the Rhine is named for Beuys. Later in life, Beuys became a visiting professor at various institutions (1980–1985).


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "The most important discussion is epistemological in character," stated Beuys, demonstrating his desire for continuous intellectual exchange. Beuys attempted to apply philosophical concepts to his pedagogical practice. Beuys's action, "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare", exemplifies a performance that is especially relevant to the pedagogical field because addresses "the difficulty of explaining things". The artist spent three hours explaining his art to a dead hare with his head covered with honey and gold leaf, and Ulmer argues not only that the honey on the head but the hare itself are models of thinking, of man embodying his ideas in forms. Contemporary movements such as performance art may be considered 'laboratories' for a new pedagogy since "research and experiment have replaced form as the guiding force".


title: Joseph Beuys

text: During an "Artform" interview with Willoughby Sharp in 1969, Beuys added to his famous statement – "teaching is my greatest work of art" – that "the rest is the waste product, a demonstration. If you want to express yourself you must present something tangible. But after a while this has only the function of a historic document. Objects aren't very important any more. I want to get to the origin of matter, to the thought behind it." Beuys saw his role of an artist as a teacher or shaman who could guide society in a new direction.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: At the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, Beuys did not impose his artistic style or techniques on his students; in fact, he kept much of his work and exhibitions hidden from the classroom because he wanted his students to explore their own interests, ideas, and talents. Beuys's actions were somewhat contradictory: while he was extremely strict about certain aspects of classroom management and instruction, such as punctuality and the need for students to take draftsmanship classes, he encouraged his students to freely set their own artistic goals without having to prescribe to set curricula. Another aspect of Beuys's pedagogy included open "ring discussions" or , where Beuys and his students discussed political and philosophical issues of the day, including the role of art, democracy, and the university in society. Some of his ideas espoused in class discussion and in his art-making included free art education for all, the discovery of creativity in everyday life, and the belief that "everyone [was] an artist." Beuys himself encouraged peripheral activity and all manner of expression to emerge during the course of these discussions. While some of Beuys's students enjoyed the open discourse of the , others, including Palermo and Immendorf, disapproved of the classroom disorder and anarchic characteristics, eventually rejecting his methods and philosophies altogether.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys also advocated taking art outside of the boundaries of the (art) system and opening it up to multiple possibilities, bringing creativity into all areas of life. His nontraditional and anti-establishment pedagogical practice and philosophy made him the focus of much controversy, and to battle the policy of "restricted entry", under which only a few select students were allowed to attend art classes, he deliberately allowed students to over-enroll in his courses (Anastasia Shartin), true to his belief those who have something to teach and those who have something to learn should come together. According to Cornelia Lauf (1992), "in order to implement his idea, as well as a host of supporting notions encompassing cultural and political concepts, Beuys crafted a charismatic artistic persona that infused his work with mystical overtones and led him to be called "shaman" and "messianic" in the popular press."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys had adopted shamanism not only as a presentation mode of his art but also in his own life. Although the artist as a shaman has been a trend in modern art (Picasso, Gauguin), Beuys is unusual in that respect as he integrated "his art and his life into the shaman role." Beuys believed that humanity, with its turn on rationality, was trying to eliminate emotions and thus eliminate a major source of energy and creativity. In his first lecture tour in America he espoused that humanity was in an evolving state and that as "spiritual" beings we ought to draw on both our emotions and our thinking as they represent the total energy and creativity for every individual. Beuys described how we must seek out and energize our spirituality and link it to our thinking powers so that "our vision of the world must be extended to encompass all the invisible energies with which we have lost contact."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys saw his performance art as shamanistic and psychoanalytic to both educate and heal the general public.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "It was thus a strategic stage to use the shaman's character but, subsequently, I gave scientific lectures. Also, at times, on one hand, I was a kind of modern scientific analyst, on the other hand, in the actions, I had a synthetic existence as shaman. This strategy aimed at creating in people an agitation for instigating questions rather than for conveying a complete and perfect structure. It was a kind of psychoanalysis with all the problems of energy and culture."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys's art was considered both instructive and therapeutic – "His intention was to use these two forms of discourse and styles of knowledge as pedagogues." He used shamanistic and psychoanalytic techniques to "manipulate symbols" and affect his audience.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In his personal life, Beuys had adopted a felt hat, a felt suit, a cane and a vest as his standard look. The imagined story of him being rescued by Tartar herdsmen perhaps is an explanation for his adopting materials like felt and fat.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys experienced severe depression between 1955 and 1957. After recovering, he observed at the time that "his personal crisis" caused him to question everything in life, and he called the incident "a shamanistic initiation." He saw death not only in its inevitability for people, but also death in the environment, and through his art and his political activism, he became a strong critic of environmental destruction. He said at the time, "I don't use shamanism to refer to death, but vice versa – through shamanism, I refer to the fatal character of the times we live in. But at the same time I also point out that the fatal character of the present can be overcome in the future."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The only major retrospective of Beuys work to be organised in Beuys's lifetime opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1979. The exhibition has been described as a "lightning rod for American criticism," eliciting as it did some powerful and polemical responses.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys's extensive body of work principally comprises four domains: works of art in a traditional sense (painting, drawing, sculpture and installations), performance, contributions to the theory of art and academic teaching, and social and political activities.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1962, Beuys befriended his Düsseldorf colleague Nam June Paik, a member of the Fluxus movement. This began what was to be a brief formal involvement with Fluxus, a loose international group of artists who championed radical erosion of artistic boundaries, bringing aspects of creative practice outside of the institution and into the everyday. Although Beuys participated in a number of Fluxus events, it soon became clear that he viewed the implications of art's economic and institutional framework differently. Indeed, whereas Fluxus was directly inspired by the radical Dada activities emerging during the First World War, Beuys in a 1964 broadcast (from the Second German Television Studio) a different message: "" ('The silence of Marcel Duchamp is overrated'). Beuys's relationship with the legacy of Duchamp and the readymade is a central (if often unacknowledged) aspect of the controversy surrounding his practice.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: On 12 January 1985, Beuys, together with Andy Warhol and Kaii Higashiyama, became involved in the "Global-Art-Fusion" project. This was a fax art project, initiated by the conceptual artist Ueli Fuchser, in which faxes with drawings of all three artists were sent within 32 minutes around the world – from Düsseldorf (Germany) via New York (USA) to Tokyo (Japan), and received at Vienna's Palais-Liechtenstein Museum of Modern Art. This fax event was a sign of peace during the Cold War in the 1980s.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys's first solo exhibition in a private gallery opened on 26 November 1965 with one of his most famous performances: "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare". The artist could be viewed through the glass of the gallery's window. His face was covered in honey and gold leaf, and an iron slab was attached to his boot. In his arms he cradled a dead hare, into whose ear he uttered muffled noises as well as explanations of the drawings lining the walls. Such materials and actions had specific symbolic value for Beuys. For example, honey is the product of bees, and for Beuys (following Rudolf Steiner), bees represented an ideal society of warmth and brotherhood. Gold had its importance within alchemical enquiry, and iron, the metal of Mars, stood for a masculine principle of strength and connection to the earth. A photograph from the performance, in which Beuys sits with the hare, has been described "by some critics as a new Mona Lisa of the 20th century," though Beuys disagreed with the description.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "In putting honey on my head I am clearly doing something that has to do with thinking. Human ability is not to produce honey, but to think, to produce ideas. In this way the deathlike character of thinking becomes lifelike again. For honey is undoubtedly a living substance. Human thinking can be lively too. But it can also be intellectualized to a deadly degree, and remain dead, and express its deadliness in, say, the political or pedagogic fields. Gold and honey indicate a transformation of the head, and therefore, naturally and logically, the brain and our understanding of thought, consciousness and all the other levels necessary to explain pictures to a hare: the warm stool insulated with felt ... and the iron sole with the magnet. I had to walk on this sole when I carried the hare round from picture to picture, so along with the strange limp came the clank of iron on the hard stone floor—that was all that broke the silence, since my explanations were mute ... This seems to have been the action that most captured people's imaginations. On one level this must be because everyone consciously or unconsciously recognizes the problem of explaining things, particularly where art and creative work are concerned, or anything that involves a certain mystery or question. The idea of explaining to an animal conveys a sense of the secrecy of the world and of existence that appeals to the imagination. Then, as I said, even a dead animal preserves more powers of intuition than some human beings with their stubborn rationality.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The problem lies in the word 'understanding' and its many levels, which cannot be restricted to rational analysis. Imagination, inspiration, and longing all lead people to sense that these other levels also play a part in understanding. This must be the root of reactions to this action, and is why my technique has been to try and seek out the energy points in the human power field, rather than demanding specific knowledge or reactions on the part of the public. I try to bring to light the complexity of creative areas."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys produced many such spectacular, ritualistic performances, and he developed a compelling persona whereby he took on a liminal, shamanistic role, as if to enable passage between different physical and spiritual states. Further examples of such performances include: "" (1967), "Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch) Scottish Symphony" (1970), and "I Like America and America Likes Me" (1974).


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "The Chief" was first performed in Copenhagen in 1963 and in Berlin in 1964. Beuys positioned himself on the gallery floor wrapped entirely in a large felt blanket, and remained there for nine hours. Emerging from either end of the blanket were two dead hares. Around him was an installation of copper rod, felt, fat, hair, and fingernails. Inside the blanket Beuys held a microphone into which he breathed, coughed, groaned, grumbled, whispered and whistled at irregular intervals, with the results amplified by a PA system as viewers observed from the doorway.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In her book on Beuys, Caroline Tisdall wrote that "The Chief" "is the first performance in which the rich vocabulary of the next fifteen years is already suggested," and that its theme is "the exploration of levels of communication beyond human semantics, by appealing to atavistic and instinctual powers." Beuys stated that his presence in the room "was like that of a carrier wave, attempting to switch off my own species' range of semantics." He also said: "For me "The Chief" was above all an important sound piece. The most recurring sound was deep in the throat and hoarse like the cry of the stag...This is a primary sound, reaching far back. ... The sounds I make are taken consciously from animals. I see it as a way of coming into contact with other forms of existence beyond the human one. It's a way of going beyond our restricted understanding to expand the scale of producers of energy among co-operators in other species, all of whom have different abilities[.]" Beuys also acknowledged the physical demands of the performance. "It takes a lot of discipline to avoid panicking in such a condition, floating empty and devoid of emotion and without specific feelings of claustrophobia or pain, for nine hours in the same position ... such an action ... changes me radically. In a way it's a death, a real action and not an interpretation."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Writer Jan Verwoert noted that Beuys' "voice filled the room, while the source was nowhere to be found. The artist was the focus of attention, yet remained invisible, rolled up in a felt blanket throughout the duration of the event...visitors were...forced to stay in the neighboring room. They could see what was happening but remained barred from direct physical access to the event. The partial closing-off of the performance space from the audience space created distance, and at the same time increased the attraction of the artist's presence. He was present acoustically and physically as part of a piece of sculpture, but also absent, invisible, untouchable[.]" Verwoert suggests that "The Chief" "can be read as a parable of cultural work in a public medium. The authority of those who dare — or are so bold as — to speak publicly results from the fact that they isolate themselves from the gaze of the public, under the gaze of the public, in order to still address it in indirect speech, relayed through a medium. What is constituted in this ceremony is authority in the sense of authorship, in the sense of a public voice...Beuys stages the creation of such a public voice as an event that is as dramatic as it is absurd. He thus asserts the emergence of such a voice as an event. At the same time, however, he also undermines this assertion through the lamentably powerless form by which this voice is produced: in emitting half-smothered inarticulate sounds that would have remained inaudible without electronic amplification." Lana Shafer Meador wrote: "Inherent to "The Chief" were issues of communication and transformation ... For Beuys, his own muffled coughs, breaths, and grunts were his way of speaking for the hares, giving a voice to those who are misunderstood or do not possess their own...In the midst of this metaphysical communication and transmission, the audience was left out in the cold. Beuys deliberately distanced the viewers by physically positioning them in a separate gallery room — only able to hear, but not see what is occurring — and by performing the action for a grueling nine hours."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys performed in Düsseldorf in 1966. The result was a piano covered entirely in felt with two crosses made of red material affixed to its sides. Beuys wrote: "The sound of the piano is trapped inside the felt skin. In the normal sense a piano is an instrument used to produce sound. When not in use it is silent, but still has a sound potential. Here no sound is possible and the piano is condemned to silence." He also said, "The relationship to the human position is marked by the two red crosses signifying emergency: the danger that threatens if we stay silent and fail to make the next evolutionary step...Such an object is intended as a stimulus for discussion, and in no way is to be taken as an aesthetic product." During the performance he also used wax earplugs and drew and wrote on a blackboard.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The piece is subtitled "The greatest composer here is the thalidomide child", and attempts to bring attention to the plight of children affected by the drug. (Thalidomide was a sleep aid introduced in the 1950s in Germany. It was promoted to help relieve the symptoms of morning sickness and was prescribed in unlimited doses to pregnant women. However, it quickly became apparent that Thalidomide caused death and deformities in some children of mothers who had taken the drug. It was on the market for less than four years. In Germany around 2,500 children were affected.) During his performance, Beuys held a discussion about the tragedy surrounding Thalidomide children.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys also prepared "Infiltration Homogens for Cello", a cello wrapped in grey felt with a red cross attached, for musician Charlotte Moorman, who performed it in conjunction with Nam June Paik.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Caroline Tisdall noted how, in this work, "sound and silence, exterior and interior, are ... brought together in objects and actions as representatives of the physical and spiritual worlds." Australian sculptor Ken Unsworth wrote that "Infiltration" "became a black hole: instead of sound escaping, sound was drawn into it ... It wasn't as if the piano was dead. I realised Beuys identified felt with saving and preserving life." Artist Dan McLaughlin wrote of the "quiet absorptive silencing of an instrument capable of an infinity of expressions The power and potency of the instrument is dressed, swaddled even, in felt, legs and all, and creates a clumsy, pachyderm-like metaphor for a kind of silent entombment. But it is also a power incubated, protected and storing potential expressions ... pieces like "Infiltration" showcase the intuitive power Beuys had, understanding that some materials had invested in them human language and human gesture through use and proximity, through morphological sympathy."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Art historian considers this performance pivotal for the reception of German avant-garde art in the United States since it paved the way for recognition of not only Beuys' own work but also that of contemporaries such as Georg Baselitz, Kiefer, Lüpertz, and many others in the 1980s. In May 1974, Beuys flew to New York and was taken by ambulance to the site of the performance, a room in the René Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway. Beuys lay on the ambulance stretcher swathed in felt. He shared this room with a coyote for eight hours over three days. At times he stood, wrapped in a thick, grey blanket of felt, leaning on a large shepherd's staff. At times he lay on the straw, at times he watched the coyote as the coyote watched him and cautiously circled the man or shredded the blanket to pieces, and at times he engaged in symbolic gestures, such as striking a large triangle or tossing his leather gloves to the animal; the performance continuously shifted between elements that were required by the realities of the situation and elements that had a purely symbolic character. At the end of the three days, Beuys hugged the coyote that had grown quite tolerant of him and was taken to the airport. Again he rode in a veiled ambulance, leaving America without having set foot on its ground. As Beuys later explained: 'I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.'


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 2013, Dale Eisinger of "Complex" ranked "I Like America and America Likes Me" the second greatest work of performance art ever, after "Pandrogeny" by Genesis P-Orridge.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Richard Demarco invited Beuys to Scotland in May 1970 and again in August to show and perform in the Edinburgh International Festival with Günther Uecker, Blinky Palermo and other Düsseldorf artists plus Robert Filliou where they took over the main spaces of the Edinburgh College of Art. The exhibition was a defining moment for British and European art, directly influencing several generations of artists and curators.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In Edinburgh in 1970, Beuys created ARENA for Demarco as a retrospective of his art up to that time, showed his installation "" and performed "Celtic Kinloch Rannoch" with Henning Christiansen and in support, seen by several thousands. This was Beuys' first use of blackboards and the beginning of nine trips to Scotland to work with Richard Demarco, and six to Ireland and five to England, working mainly with art critic Caroline Tisdall and Troubled Image Group artist Robert McDowell and others in the detailed formulation of the Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research (FIU) presented at documenta 6 in 1977, in London in 1978 and Edinburgh in 1980, as well as in many other iterations.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In Edinburgh, at the end of the 1970s the FIU became among four organisations that founded the German Green Party. Beuys became entranced by the periphery of Europe as a dynamic counter in cultural and economic terms to Europe's centralisation, and this included linking Europe's energies North-South to Italy and East-West in the Eurasia concept, with special emphasis on Celtic traditions in landscape, poetry, and myths that also define Eurasia. In his view anything that survives as art and ideas and beliefs, including the great religions for centuries or millennia, contain eternal truths and beauty. The truth of ideas and of 'thinking as form', the sculpture of energies across a wide and variegated spectrum from mythos and spirituality to materialism, Socialism and Capitalism, and of 'creativity = capital' encompassed for him the study of geology, botany, and animal life, finding meanings and precepts in all of these as much as in the study of society, philosophy and the human condition, and in his art practice as 'Social Sculpture'.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: He adopted and developed a Gestalt way to examine and work with both organic and inorganic substances and human social elements, following Leonardo, Loyola, Goethe, Steiner, Joyce, and many other artists, scientists and thinkers, working with all visible and invisible aspects comprising a totality of cultural, moral and ethical significance as much as practical or scientific value. These trips inspired many works and performances. Beuys considered Edinburgh with its Enlightenment history as a laboratory of inspirational ideas. When visiting Loch Awe and Rannoch Moor on his May 1970 visit to Demarco he first conceived the necessity of the "7,000 Oaks" work. After making the Loch Awe sculpture, at Rannoch Moor he began what became the "Celtic (Kinlock Rannoch) Scottish Symphony" performance, developed further in Basel the next year as "Celtic+". The performance in Edinburgh included his first blackboard that later appeared in many performances when in discussion with the public. With it and his Eurasian staff he is a transmitter and, despite long periods of imperturbable stillness interspersed by Christiansen's 'sound sculptures', he also creates dialogue evoking artists' thoughts and in discussion with spectators. He collected gelatin representing crystalline stored energy of ideas that had been spread over the wall. In Basel the action including washing the feet of seven spectators. He immersed himself in water with reference to Christian traditions and baptism and symbolized revolutionary freedom from false preconceptions.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: He then, as in Edinburgh, pushed a blackboard across the floor alternately writing or drawing on it for his audience. He put each piece in a tray and as the tray became full he held it above his head and convulsed, causing the gelatin to fall on him and the floor. He followed this with a quiet pause. He stared into emptiness for over half an hour, fairly still in both performances. During this time, he had a lance in his hand and was standing by the blackboard where he had drawn a grail. He took a protective stance. After this he repeated each action in the opposite order, ending with the washing with water as a final cleansing. The performances were filled with Celtic symbolism with various interpretations or historic influences. This extended in 1972 with the performance "Vitex Agnus Castus" in Naples, of combining female and male elements and evoking much else, and extended further with "I Like America and America Likes Me" to have a performance dialogue with the original energy of America represented by the endangered yet highly intelligent coyote.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1974, in Edinburgh, Beuys worked with Buckminster Fuller in Demarco's 'Black & White Oil Conference', where Beuys talked of 'The Energy Plan of the Western Man' using blackboards in open discussion with audiences at Demarco's Forrest Hill Schoolhouse. In the 1974 Edinburgh Festival, Beuys performed "Three Pots for the Poorhouse" again using gelatin in Edinburgh's ancient poorhouse, continuing the development begun with "Celtic Kinloch Rannoch". He met there Tadeusz Kantor directing "Lovelies and Dowdies" and was at Marina Abramović's first ever performance. In 1976, Beuys performed "In Defence of the Innocent" at the Demarco Gallery where he stood for the imprisoned gangster and sculptor Jimmy Boyle in a manner associating Boyle with the coyote. In 1980 Edinburgh Festival Beuys was at the FIU exhibition and performed "Jimmy Boyle Days" (the name of the blackboards he used in public discussions), and where he went on a hunger strike as a public protest and led with others in a legal action against the Scottish Justice system. This was the first case under the new European Human Rights Act. The eight performances should be understood as one continuum.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: During the 1960s Beuys formed his central theoretical concepts about arts' social, cultural and political function and potential. Indebted to Romantic writers like Novalis and Schiller, Beuys was motivated by a belief in the power of universal human creativity and was confident about the potential for art to bring about revolutionary change. These ideas were founded in the body of social ideas of Rudolf Steiner, known as Social Threefolding, of which he was a vigorous and original proponent. This translated into Beuys's devising the concept of social sculpture, in which society as a whole was to be regarded as one great work of art (the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk) to which each person can contribute creatively (perhaps Beuys's most famous phrase, borrowed from Novalis, is "Everyone is an artist"). In the video "Willoughby SHARP," Joseph Beuys, Public Dialogues" (1974/120 min.)", a record of Beuys's first major public discussion in the U.S., Beuys elaborates three principles: Freedom, Democracy, and Socialism, saying that each of them depends on the other two in order to be meaningful. In 1973, Beuys wrote:


title: Joseph Beuys

text: "Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build 'A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART' ... EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who – from his state of freedom – the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand – learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER."


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1982, he was invited to create a work for documenta 7. He delivered a large pile of basalt stones. From above one could see that the pile of stones was a large arrow pointing to a single oak tree that he had planted. He announced that the stones should not be moved unless an oak tree was planted in a stone's new location. 7,000 oak trees were then planted in Kassel, Germany. This project exemplified the idea that a social sculpture was defined as interdisciplinary and participatory. Beuys wanted to effect environmental and social change through this project. The Dia Art Foundation is perpetuating his project and has planted more trees and paired them with basalt stones, too.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: My point with these seven thousand trees was that each would be a monument, consisting of a living part, the live tree, changing all the time, and a crystalline mass maintaining its shape, size, and weight. This stone can be transformed only by taking from it, when a piece splinters off, say, never by growing. By placing these two objects side by side, the proportionality of the monument's two parts will never be the same.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: In 1982, Beuys recorded a music video for a song he had written entitled "Sonne statt Reagan" which translates to "Sun, not Rain/Reagan", an anti-Reagan political piece that included some German puns and reinforced some key messages of Beuys's career (at least, after his days as a soldier) – namely, a liberal, pacifist political attitude, a desire to perpetuate open discourse about art and politics, a refusal to sanctify his own image and 'artistic reputation' by only doing the kinds of work other people expected he would do, and above all an openness to exploring different media forms to get across the messages he wanted to convey. His continued commitment to the demystification and dis-institutionalization of the 'art world' was never more clear than it is here.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys made it clear that he regarded this song as a work of art, not the "pop" product it appears to be, which is apparent from the moment one views it. This becomes clearer when one reads the lyrics, which are aimed directly at Reagan, the military complex and whoever is trying to defrost the "Cold War" to make it "Hot." The song is perhaps best understood in the context of intense liberal and progressive frustration in 1982. Beuys warns Reagan "et al." that the peace-loving masses are behind him, including Americans as well. Some discourse about Beuys by those who consider his body of artwork sacrosanct has avoided "Sonne statt Reagan", regarding the video as an outlier, even to be ridiculed. Yet by choosing the vehicle of popular music, Beuys showed commitment to his views and to engage a broad means to have them reach people.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Among Beuys's more ambitious pieces of social sculpture was the "7,000 Oaks" project, one of enormous scope which met with some controversy.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Amongst other things, Beuys founded (or co-founded) the following political organisations: German Student Party (1967), Organization for Direct Democracy Through Referendum (1971), Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research (1974), and German Green Party Die Grünen (1980). Beuys became a pacifist and a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons; he campaigned for environmental causes (in fact he was elected as a Green Party candidate for the European Parliament). Some of his art directly addressed the political issues of the day among groups with which he affiliated. His song and music video "Sun Instead of Reagan" (1982) expresses the theme of regeneration (optimism, growth, hope) running through his life and work as well as his interest in contemporary nuclear politics: "But we want: sun instead of Reagan, to live without weapons! Whether West, whether East, let missiles rust!"


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The Guggenheim retrospective and catalogue offered a comprehensive view of Beuys's practice and rhetoric to an American critical audience. Although for some time he had been a central figure in the post-war European artistic consciousness, his work to that point had had only fleeting and partial exposure among American audiences. In 1980, building on scepticism voiced by Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, who in a 1972 Open Letter had compared Beuys to Wagner, art historian Benjamin Buchloh (who was teaching at Staatliche Kunstakademie, just like Beuys) launched a polemically forceful attack on Beuys. The essay was (and remains) a vitriolic and extensive critique of both Beuys's rhetoric (referred to as "simple-minded utopian drivel") and persona (Buchloh regards Beuys as both infantile and messianic).


title: Joseph Beuys

text: First, Buchloh notes Beuys' fictionalisation of his own biography, which he sees as symptomatic of a dangerous cultural tendency to disavow past trauma and retreat into the realms of myth and esoteric symbolism. Buchloh critiques Beuys for failing to acknowledge and engage with Nazism, the Holocaust, and their implications. Buchloh then criticizes Beuys for displaying an inability or reluctance to engage with the consequences of the work of Marcel Duchamp, in particular, a failure to acknowledge the framing function of the art institution and the inevitable dependence upon such institutions to create meaning for art objects. If Beuys championed art's power to foster political transformation, Buchloh asserts that Beuys nevertheless failed to acknowledge the limits imposed upon such aspirations by the art museum and dealership networks which, he asserts, may serve somewhat less utopian ambitions. For Buchloh, rather than acknowledging the collective and contextual formation of meaning, Beuys instead tried to prescribe and control the meanings of his art, often through dubious esoteric or symbolic codings. Buchloh's critique has been expounded upon by commentators like Stefan Germer and Rosalind Krauss.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Buchloh's critique has been subject to revision. His attention is given to dismantling a mythologized artistic persona and utopian rhetoric, which he regarded to be irresponsible and even (one may infer) proto-fascist. Since Buchloh's essay was published, however, much new archival material has come to light, most significantly Beuys' proposal for an Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial, submitted in 1958. Some argue that the existence of such a project invalidates Buchloh's claim that Beuys retreated from engaging with the Nazi legacy, a point that Buchloh himself has acknowledged, although the charges of romanticism and self-mythologizing remain.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys' charisma and eclecticism may have polarized some of his audience. His work has attracted admirers and devotees, some who may uncritically accept Beuys' own explanations as interpretive solutions to his work. In contrast, some of those in Buchloh's camp charge Beuys' with weak rhetoric and arguments and dismiss his work as bogus. Relatively few accounts have addressed works themselves, with the exception of scholarship from art historians like Gene Ray, Claudia Mesch, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Briony Fer, Alex Potts, and others. The drive here has been to separate Beuys' work from his rhetoric, and to explore both wider discursive formations within which Beuys operated (this time, productively), and the physical properties of the works themselves.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Examples of contemporary artists who have drawn from the legacy of Beuys include AA Bronson, former member of the artists' collaborative General Idea, who, not without irony, adopts the subject position of the shaman to reclaim art's restorative, healing powers; Andy Wear whose installations are deliberately formed according to the Beuysian notion of 'stations' and are (in particular, referencing the Block Beuys in Darmstadt) essentially a constellation of works performed or created external to the installation; and Peter Gallo, whose drawing cycle "I wish I could draw like Joseph Beuys" features stretches of Beuys' writings combined with images traced from vintage gay pornography onto random pieces of paper.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Additionally, the counter-institution of the FIU or Free International University, initiated by Beuys, continues as a publishing concern (FIU Verlag) and has active chapters in German cities including Hamburg, Munich, and Amorbach.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Franz Joseph and Hans van der Grinten organized Beuys's first solo show at their house in Kranenburg in 1953. The Alfred Schmela Galerie was the first commercial gallery to hold a Beuys solo exhibition in 1965. Beuys participated for the first time in documenta in Kassel in 1964. In 1969, he was included in Harald Szeemann's groundbreaking exhibition "When Attitudes Become Form" at the Kunsthalle Bern.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The 1970s were marked by numerous major exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. In 1970, a large collection of Beuys's work formed under the artist's own aegis, the Ströher Collection, was installed in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, which remains the most important public collection of his work. Pontus Hultén invited him to exhibit at Moderna Museet in 1971. Beuys exhibited and performed at each documenta Kassel, most notably with "The Honeypump at the FIU Workplace" in 1977 and with "7,000 Oaks" in 1982. He showed four times at the Edinburgh International Festival and represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and 1980. In 1980, Beuys took part in a meeting with Alberto Burri at the Rocca Paolina in Perugia, curated by Italo Tomassoni. During his performance, Beuys explained "Opera Unica": six blackboards then purchased by the municipality of Perugia and now housed in the Museo civico di Palazzo della Penna in Perugia. A retrospective of his work was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1979. In 1984, Beuys visited Japan and showed various works, including installations and performances, while also holding discussions with students and giving lectures. His first Beuys exhibition took place at the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo that same year. The DIA Art Foundation held exhibitions of Beuys' work in 1987, 1992, and 1998, and has planted trees and basalt columns in New York City as part of his "7,000 Oaks", echoing his planting of 7,000 oaks each with a basalt stone, a project begun in 1982 for Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. Large collections of his multiples are held by Harvard University, the Walker Art Center Minneapolis, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, which also has a collection of Beuys vitrines, The Schellmann and D'Offey collections. Most of the Marx collection of Beuys works including "The secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland" drawings is at The Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin. Major art museums in Germany have Beuys works including Fond III at Landesmuseum Darmstadt, while Moechengladbach Museum has the Poor House Doors and much more. Beuys also gave a large collection to the Solidarinosc Movement in Poland. Feuerstätte I und Feuerstätte II (Hearth I and Hearth II) and other works are at the Museum for Contemporary Art Basel, and a dedicated museum was created for 'The Museum des Geldes' collection mainly of FIU blackboards from Documenta 6. As well, perennial Beuys exhibitions continue to take place around the world.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The first works Franz Joseph and Hans van der Grinten bought from Joseph Beuys in 1951 cost about €10 each in 2021 currency. Beginning with small woodcuts, they purchased about 4,000 works, creating the largest Beuys collection in the world. In 1967, the 'Beuys Block', a group of first works, was purchased by the collector Karl Ströher in Darmstadt (now part of the Hessisches Landesmuseum).


title: Joseph Beuys

text: Beuys' artworks have fluctuated in price in the years since his death, sometimes even failing to reach bid minimums. At auction, the top price paid (so far) for a Beuys work is $900,000 (hammer price) for a bronze sculpture titled "Bett" ("Corsett," 1949/50) at Sotheby's New York in May 2008. His "Schlitten" ("Sled", 1969) sold for $314,500 at Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, in April 2012. At the same auction, a "Filzanzug" ("Felt Suit," 1970) sold for $96,100. This surpassed the previous auction record for a "Filzanzug", 62,000 euros (US$91,381.80) at Kunsthaus Lempertz (Cologne, Germany) in November 2007.


title: Joseph Beuys

text: The artist produced over 600 original multiples in his lifetime. Large sets of multiples are in the collections of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany, Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany. In 2006, the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles acquired 570 multiples by Beuys, including a "Filzanzug" and a "Schlitten", thereby becoming the most complete collection of Beuys works in the United States and among the largest collections of Beuys multiples in the world.


title: Download Festival

text: Download Festival is a British-created rock festival created by Terrance Gough, held annually at the Donington Park motorsport circuit in Leicestershire, England (since 2003); in Paris, France (since 2016); at Parramatta Park, Sydney (since 2019); and at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne (since 2018).


title: Download Festival

text: Download at Donington is the most popular British summer rock and heavy metal festival and has hosted some of the genre's biggest names, including Black Sabbath, Slipknot, Metallica, Linkin Park, Iron Maiden, Korn, Soundgarden, Motörhead, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Kiss, Judas Priest, Rammstein, Status Quo, Mötley Crüe, Journey, ZZ Top, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Saxon, Faith No More and Guns N' Roses.


title: Download Festival

text: The Download Festival was conceived as a follow up to the Monsters of Rock festivals which had been held at the Donington Park circuit between 1980 and 1996. The first Download Festival was created by Stuart Galbraith and co-booked by Andy Copping in 2003 in the same location. Download was initially a two-day event, expanding to three days in 2005.


title: Download Festival

text: The name Download was chosen for the festival for two reasons. Downloading was a dirty word in the music industry at the time, due to file sharing, and rock is seen as a rebellious genre of music. Also Download was to be a Monsters of Rock for the 21st century and the internet would provide connectivity with its audience.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2003 festival tickets had a code on them, which would allow festival goers to download tracks from bands which had played. Although this idea has been dropped in subsequent years, the festival organisers have nurtured an online community through the Download Festival Forums. Initially a sounding board for the fans (and critics) of the festival, the boards have become an integral part of the festival organisation with regular contributions from Festival Director John Probyn and Promoter Andy Copping. The forums also provide face to face feedback through the Fan Forum meetings (started in 2006) and organise the Boardie BBQ (2006 on) and the Boardie Takeover night (2009), football tournaments and a pub quiz for the R.I.P. campers who arrive on a Wednesday night.


title: Download Festival

text: When Download began, it took place on the Donington Park circuit infield as had Monsters of Rock. However, in 2008 developments for Formula One meant that the infield was no longer suitable as a festival site. The festival moved to the "Sunday Markets" site to the west of the circuit. Although adequate, numbers were limited and the location of the campsite meant that getting from tents to the arena was quite a hike. 2009 saw the arena move to a much more suitable location to the south of the circuit and has remained there every year since. In 2019 the capacity was 111,000.


title: Download Festival

text: Security for the festival has constantly been undertaken by professional crowd management specialists Specialized Security, although the campsite area has had various contractors throughout.


title: Download Festival

text: From 2009 to 2019 and returning in 2021, there has been on-site radio broadcasting from Rock Radio on 87.7FM. This RSL broadcast has aired music from festival bands, interviews and news to the festival site and the surrounding area, with the signal reaching as far as Nottingham.


title: Download Festival

text: The Download Dog is the official mascot of the Download Festival and appears on a wide range of material related to the festival, such as tickets, stage banners, merchandise, marketing, and the official Download website.


title: Download Festival

text: The first Download was held on 31 May – 1 June 2003. The original headliners were Iron Maiden and Limp Bizkit, although the latter pulled out and were replaced by Audioslave. Metallica attempted to step in as headliners, but were unable to do so, owing to headlining that year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. Instead, having performed an exclusive club show in London the night before, they played an unannounced "secret slot" in the afternoon on the second stage, with no soundcheck. "Sunday belonged to Metallica," wrote Mick Middles in "Classic Rock". "At 3.15 the band were fired into the heart of the festival. Before me, a nonplussed, earplugged infant was held aloft. Somehow it seemed historical. Debuting selections from "St. Anger", Metallica swept into a 90-minute frenzy so irresistible that even the Hells Angels were seen clapping in wholehearted appreciation at the end. The coup was complete."


title: Download Festival

text: Chevelle were scheduled to play the Scuzz stage on Sunday but pulled out at the last minute. Instruction, playing their second set of the festival, stepped in as the replacements.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2004 edition of the festival was held on 5–6 June. Another stage was added to the festival, bringing the total to three. Seventy-two bands played over the two days. The 2004 event was also notable for several last minute hitches. First, SOiL got lost on the way to Donington and missed their main stage appearance on Saturday (they later joined Drowning Pool on stage to perform Drowning Pool's "Bodies" and their own song "Halo"). Static-X missed their slot due to a bus breakdown. On Sunday, Slayer arrived on time, but their equipment did not, leading to a slot change from the middle of the afternoon on the main stage to a later slot (and longer set) on the second stage. Slayer were replaced on the main stage by Damageplan, who were scheduled to play the second stage. Their setlist ended with a rendition of Damageplan founders Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell's most recognisable song from Pantera, "Walk."


title: Download Festival

text: The biggest news came from the headliners Metallica, when Lars Ulrich was rushed to hospital. Taking to the stage an hour and a half late, James Hetfield explained the situation with Ulrich and the show then began with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo playing on "Battery" and "The Four Horsemen." Slipknot's Joey Jordison played the rest of the set apart from Fade to Black which was played by Metallica's drum technician, Flemming Larsen.


title: Download Festival

text: In June 2004 a two-day Download Festival was held on Glasgow Green, several days before the Donington event. This had a limited line up with only nine bands performing over a two-day period. The bands which did play included the headliners, Metallica and Linkin Park. Download Scotland also saw an appearance from the Welsh rock band Lostprophets who did not perform at Donington.


title: Download Festival

text: Acts which also appeared over the two days at Download Scotland were Korn, Slipknot, Iggy and the Stooges, Machine Head, the Distillers and HIM.


title: Download Festival

text: Download 2005 was held again at Donington Park, on 10–12 June 2005. This festival was different from previous years as the Saturday was officially dubbed Ozzfest 2005, as well as an "Indie day" on the first day of the festival.


title: Download Festival

text: Billy Idol performed on the Snickers stage on the Friday night, his first UK gig after a lengthy hiatus, performing songs such as White Wedding, Rebel Yell and a cover version of Van Halen's anthem, Jump.


title: Download Festival

text: Feeder's frontman Grant Nicholas was so relieved the band had won the crowd over (there were concerns that they would be received badly by the traditional attendees to the festival), he decided to smash his green Fender Jazzmaster guitar after "Descend" was performed. He later said that he regretted it, but also said he kept the neck and the tremeloes, and might use what was left to make a new guitar. In a July 2010 interview with Kerrang!, it was suggested to Nicholas that he destroyed the guitar as he was frustrated at trying to win the crowd over, as their music was different from the Download demographic, but claimed himself in reply to this that he "Wanted to do the most rock and roll thing after eventually winning over the crowd". In the same interview, Nicholas said that they were "guinea pigs" at the festival as part of the organisers experiment to make it an alternative festival, but said it was a moment of the band's career he is still proud of.


title: Download Festival

text: Initially, Bert McCracken of the Used and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance were asked to perform their cover of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, but the former friends refused the offer to perform the cover as they had recently fallen out.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2006 Download Festival was held at Donington Park, England on 9–11 June. The headlining acts (Tool, Metallica and Guns N' Roses) have sales of approximately 200–250 million albums between them, more than the entire line up of 2006's V Festival.


title: Download Festival

text: 2006 was the first time the festival was mirrored in the Republic of Ireland, as Download Festival Ireland.


title: Download Festival

text: During the festival Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis was rushed to hospital. Similar to 2004's Metallica set, Munky, Fieldy and David Silveria arrived and explained to the fans why Davis could not make it and played with guest vocalists Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Dez Fafara from DevilDriver, Jesse Hasek from 10 Years, Benji Webbe from Skindred, M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold, and Matt Heafy from Trivium. Lyrics from the song "Blind" were displayed on the screen for Matt Heafy. Metallica played the album "Master of Puppets" in its entirety in honour of its twentieth anniversary. Guns N' Roses also performed material from the long forthcoming "Chinese Democracy" album.


title: Download Festival

text: The main stage was situated in the centre of the arena with crowd control moving around it, and was the largest of all three stages, the safety barriers used at this stage were in a T shape so as to avoid crowd crush in the middle. The stage was open-air and named in honour of the 25th anniversary of "Kerrang!" magazine. Down played an unannounced set on Saturday (With the laminates showing ??? in their time slot); opening up the Main Stage.


title: Download Festival

text: The Snickers Stage was situated in a tent, behind the main stage and was the second largest stage at the festival. Access to the stage was via a one-way system which attempted to spread people around the site, rather than all attempting to push through a rather small space.


title: Download Festival

text: Soilwork were scheduled to play on Sunday, but were replaced by DevilDriver (playing their second set of the festival).


title: Download Festival

text: The Myspace stage was the smallest of the three and under a smaller tent. It was positioned across from the front of the main stage.


title: Download Festival

text: During the Sunday headline set of Guns N' Roses, bottles were thrown at the band. This caused problems after the band's lead singer, Axl Rose, slipped on the wet surface and a bottle hit bassist Tommy Stinson. Stinson threw his bass, hitting one of the cameramen, and left the stage. He returned after the song and apologised, but warned the crowd that if this activity continued, he would leave for good. There were some disturbances but they eventually died down, and later in the set Rose commented "I'm actually having quite a good time now! I couldn't have said that an hour ago!"


title: Download Festival

text: On the final night, fires were started by some festival goers and police were called, arresting twelve people. At around 4 am, the fire brigade arrived to put out a large fire at the gold campsite. A number of people had taken the railings that had been used to separate the campsite area from the path and used them to barricade the road to prevent the fire engines from reaching the main fire. At this point a number of police assembled in riot gear stormed the campsite. The festival director, John Probyn, posted a message on the official website stating that "About 150 people spoiled the end of what had been a great weekend for over 75,000 of us."


title: Download Festival

text: The three bands that headlined the 2007 festival were My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park and Iron Maiden. Korn's Jonathan Davis stated that the reason for the band returning this year was because of his absence due to illness last year. He stated on the official Download Festival website, "I am so looking forward to coming to the Download Festival this year. I was heartbroken to pull out last time. So this time I am very happy to be coming back and we promise to rock the place! I will definitely make-up for missing the last one. You can expect an amazing Korn show!"


title: Download Festival

text: Download 2007 was Dimmu Borgir's first ever festival appearance in England. Hardcore Superstar pulled out of their slot on the Tuborg stage on the Sunday because their tour bus broke down in Germany. Download 2007 featured an Indian band Parikrama. They became the first band from India to make it to Donington.


title: Download Festival

text: Download 2007 also featured the first band to officially perform on the Thursday of the festival. Scumface played on the Tuborg Stage during the boardie barbecue.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2008 festival took place on 13–15 June. It had a significantly different layout to previous years: the arena area was situated in land to the west of the race track instead of the traditional race track infield area. Among numerous changes, the second stage became larger and moved from a marquee to open-air, on a tarmac car park.


title: Download Festival

text: "I am looking forward to humiliating those little boys in little bands who think they count," declared Gene Simmons of Kiss. "We're going to blow their shit to pieces... If U2 or Radiohead are on the bill at Download, then I accept these are good bands. But they will still run for cover when Kiss take the stage, for they are in the presence of a transcendent rock force."


title: Download Festival

text: Chris Cornell was scheduled, but cancelled his European tour to focus on a new album. Twin Method, and Finger Eleven were announced but removed from the official website's lineup. On the Friday of the festival, Kid Rock was meant to appear between Seether and Disturbed on the Main Stage but pulled out at the last minute. At first it was announced that this was due to illness. Rock later claimed he left the festival grounds after becoming dissatisfied with the amenities. But, the following year, Download's booker theorised that it had been due to a broken heart. Rock's no-show allowed two bands following him, Disturbed and Judas Priest, to play longer sets.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2008 Boardie BBQ took place on the Gibson stage on Thursday 12 June and included a performance by Forever Never.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2009 Download Festival took place on 12–14 June at Donington Park with an estimated attendance of 120,000 over 3 days. The arena had once again changed location, this time to an open field area south of the race track which was more suitable and a shorter walking distance from the camping areas than last year.


title: Download Festival

text: The headliners were Faith No More (Friday), Slipknot (Saturday) and Def Leppard (Sunday). Sunday had a strong classic rock themed line-up on the main stage with bands such as Whitesnake, ZZ Top and Journey, somewhat reminiscent of Monsters of Rock. This would become a recurring feature in future years. Other notable performers included Limp Bizkit, who were playing in the UK with their original line-up for the first time since 2001, Trivium returning for their third appearance and first head lining spot, Anvil, the band featured in the 2008 film "Anvil! The Story of Anvil", and Steel Panther, who were making their first appearance in the UK on the Tuborg Stage. A fourth stage, the "Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage", also made an appearance at this year's festival. This stage was also present at other UK festivals, such as T in the Park in Balado, Scotland, and the Underage Festival in Victoria Park, London.


title: Download Festival

text: The 2009 Boardie BBQ took place in the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage on Thursday 11 June. This year the band was Attica Rage.


title: Download Festival

text: The Thursday night of the 2009 festival also saw the Boardie Takeover night. Four bands, three DJ's: Cyst, Dave KC and Gabber Fox, solo singers Hevs and TonsO'Fun, a stand-up and a burlesque dancer – all members of the Download Festival Forums – performed to a full house in the End Tent. These bands were Scumface (returning after a successful appearance at the Boardie BBQ in 2007), Orestea, Echovirus and headliners, Silent Descent.


title: Download Festival

text: On Monday 18 May the festival confirmed on its official website that Camping tickets had completely sold out.


title: Download Festival

text: On 19 May, it was revealed in an interview with Andy Copping on Music Channel Scuzz that there would be secret sets. It was later revealed the bands would be Enter Shikari and Thunder.


title: Download Festival

text: On Wednesday 3 June, one week before the campsite opened, Download released a further 2,500 camping tickets. These limited tickets sold out within 24 hours of being released.


title: Download Festival

text: The winners of the "Red Bull Bedroom Jam Competition" was Gravesend-based band After the Ordeal. This set was a 'virtual gig', with the band playing live from their bedroom and this footage being streamed live onto the Main Stage at Download Festival, between Pendulum and Marilyn Manson.


title: Download Festival

text: The winners of the "Tuborg Battle of the bands" was Leeds punk band Acid Drop and they opened the Tuborg stage on Saturday 13 June.


title: Download Festival

text: The Ghost of a Thousand were scheduled to headline the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage on Saturday but the band cancelled. the Blackout stepped in to play their slot, thus giving them two slots on the festival's bill.


title: Download Festival

text: Slipknot's performance is available in their new DVD (sic)nesses. It was released on 28 September 2010 and served as a tribute to their late bassist Paul Gray. It was Gray's last UK gig with Slipknot before his death in May 2010.


title: Download Festival

text: The Download Festival was confirmed to return to Donington on the weekend 11–13 June 2010, the campsites opening on 9 June. On 25 January, nine bands were announced at the official Download website, including AC/DC as one of the main stage headliners. On 15 February Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith were confirmed as the other two main stage headliners, as well as 5 more bands confirmed a few hours later.


title: Download Festival

text: Saxon performed their 'Wheels of Steel' album in its entirety to commemorate its 30th anniversary. Download 2010 was also the 30th anniversary of rock festivals at Donington Park, since the first one – which Saxon performed at – in 1980.


title: Download Festival

text: It was announced on 16 May that the second stage would be renamed "The Ronnie James Dio Stage" in tribute to the singer who died of stomach cancer on the same day. It was also announced that the main stage would be called the Maurice Jones Stage after the co-founder of Monsters of Rock who also died the previous year.


title: Download Festival

text: 28 May saw 15 more bands added, and an official announcement of the Jägermeister-sponsored fifth stage, which would host acoustic acts, including bands also performing regular sets at the festival. The initially announced Sum 41 cancelled, owing to drummer Steve Jocz being involved in an accident. On 30 May 2010 it was announced that Wolfmother had to cancel due to illness. They were replaced by Killswitch Engage.


title: Download Festival

text: Aside from Dio, the year was sadly memorable for other deaths. Y&T performed the Pepsi Max Stage to a jam-packed audience, marking the band's long-anticipated return to Donington after performing at Monsters of Rock in 1984. Download would be bassist Phil Kennemore's last UK show in the UK: he died from lung cancer six months later. Killing For Company drummer Stuart Cable, previously of Stereophonics, died the week of the festival, at which the band were to play.


title: Download Festival

text: Ratt were scheduled to play on Sunday, but cancelled due to illness of vocalist Stephen Pearcy. On 9 June, FM were announced as Ratt's replacement.


title: Download Festival

text: The Boardie Takeover ran for the second year in a row on Thursday 10 June. It featured the bands Silent Descent, Fallen Fate, Jacknife Holiday and Cyster Scalpel, as well as singers, DJs and a burlesque dancer.


title: Download Festival

text: AC/DC played on an exclusive stage next to the Maurice Jones stage, allowing the band to utilise their full stadium show, as announced on 28 May. This marked the first time a headlining band brought their own stage to Donington. All headlining bands on the other stages had finished before AC/DC began. The stage was used only by AC/DC; the next day, the runway at the front was dismantled and the stage remained empty. "I took my son to see AC/DC..." recalled Saxon's Biff Byford. "Watching Angus from out in the crowd was great, and it was a rite of passage for my son."


title: Download Festival

text: The final day saw torrential rain. "By the time Aerosmith take the stage," noted "Classic Rock", "we're essentially one amorphous mud blob of an organism blinking through the mire towards the bright lights. They, on the other hand, have Steven Tyler, a man whose dress sense... makes Lady Gaga look like a vicar's wife."


title: Download Festival

text: The Download Festival was confirmed to return to Donington on the 10, 11, and 12 June 2011. Linkin Park and System of a Down were the two main stage headliners officially announced, with Saturday subheadliners Avenged Sevenfold and Sunday second stage headliner Rob Zombie announced a short while later.


title: Download Festival

text: On 22 February, Def Leppard were announced as Friday's main stage headliner, with Twisted Sister, Down, Duff McKagan's Loaded and Trash Talk also added to the line-up.


title: Download Festival

text: 15 March saw the Darkness unveiled as the widely speculated Friday subheadliner, with Funeral for a Friend, Plain White T's, Framing Hanley and Hyro Da Hero also added. In April, the Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage and Jägermeister Acoustic stage's acts were revealed.


title: Download Festival

text: Wayne Static was scheduled to open up the main stage on the Sunday, but he pulled out a month prior. Masters of Reality were scheduled to perform but pulled out on 30 March and Karma to Burn were to play the second stage on Sunday but were replaced by Hyro Da Hero, thus giving him three sets over the course of the festival; the most in Download history.


title: Download Festival

text: Steward 0836 was manning the main stage at the festival, when he caught the attention of fans waiting for Sunday's bands to appear. Some friendly interaction led to cheers from the audience, then one of the giant stage-screens showed him making the "devil horns" gesture, which was applauded by tens of thousands of rock fans. The official Download Festival website even featured him as an artist on their site.


title: Download Festival

text: On 12 July 2011 it was confirmed via Twitter, and the Download official website that the festival would be staged in 2012 between 8–10 June. Limited early-bird tickets were put on sale on 15 July. It was announced on 10 November via BBC Radio 1 that Metallica would headline the main stage on the Saturday and also that they would be playing their self titled album in its entirety. The next day Black Sabbath were announced to headline the main stage on Sunday 10 June, closing the festival. On 18 November, the Prodigy was announced as the headliner for Friday 8 June.


title: Download Festival

text: On 12 April 2012, Download Festival announced on their website, official Facebook page and official Twitter page that the main stage will be named after Jim Marshall who died a week earlier.