Auguste Rodin & Joseph Beuys | an elision*
Channel: Akim Monet
Date: 2020-07-02

What do “Étude pour le Secret” by Auguste Rodin and “Der Tisch” by Joseph Beuys have in common?

Soon after the watershed exhibition “The Hand of God” I mounted in my Berlin gallery in 2014, I gathered together by happenstance a significant group of works by Joseph Beuys.

As I researched the Beuys works, it dawned on me that the German post-war genius used, and in fact manipulated -reality, myth, mythology, and even lies perhaps, in a way akin to that in which Rodin put his insatiable appetite for culture to the service his quest for the understanding of the inner-workings of the human psyche.    

So was born the exhibition “Rodin Rilke Beuys” I mounted in Berlin the subsequent year.

In this memorable exhibition, although I was able to pair an original Beuys drawing, a study for his historical “Handaktion” with a small Rodin hand, thus bringing to life to the video of the Beuys performance I played in the background, I longed for the exquisite “Study for the Secret” I had sold the previous year, -even as I regretted not being able to show the original reel of “Handaktion,” the exceptional multiple Beuys produced as a living trace of his performance.

It took me five years, but here they are finally reunited in Los Angeles.

*e·li·sion
/əˈliZHən/

noun
noun: elision; plural noun: elisions

the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking (as in I'm, let's, e ' en ).

an omission of a passage in a book, speech, or film.
"the movie's elisions and distortions have been carefully thought out"

the process of joining together or merging things, especially abstract ideas.
"unease at the elision of so many vital questions"

___________   
#handofgod #studyforthesecret #popcorngalleryla #sidebysidegallery #rainermariarilke #artinberlin #artinla #augusterodin #josephbeuys #conceptualart #artcurator #connoisseurship #museumquality
Auguste Rodin, “Étude pour le Secret,” 1910; Joseph Beuys “Der Tisch,” 1971; Installation views, "The Hand of God”: Side by Side Gallery Akim Monet, Berlin, Spring 2014; "Rodin Rilke Beuys”: Side by Side Gallery Akim Monet, Berlin, Fall 2015. Photos: Side by Side Gallery Akim Monet GmbH, Berlin