Beuys� Chair and the Violence of the Other: Toward a Theory of Aesth-ethics
Journal: Performance Philosophy
Year: 2017

Most rare are those works of art that, in a simple visual gesture, succeed in formulating a dilemma that occupies culture as a whole. Such is the artwork of Joseph Beuys entitled Fat Chair. The work�viewed mainly from a phenomenological perspective�is comprised of two elements holding a tension: a chair on the one hand, and a lump of fat placed on top of it on the other. The tension between these elements, so the article argues, manifests the tension between two types of violence: following Benj