"Joseph Beuys"

Dusseldorf

pigment-based inkjet print

The source image for this work is a photograph that Stephan Reusse took of Joseph Beuys. The negative was exposed on conventional gelatine silver photo paper. Stephan Reusse has developed his own chemical solution with which he can convert the image back into an "invisible" so-called halogen silver image after development. In a joint action with Joseph Beuys and with the help of urine salts, the image could then be made "visible" again in daylight.
Like Joseph Beuys, Stephan Reusse also sees himself in the tradition of the alchemists. The bio-chemical reaction of the urine salts with the halogen silver painting refers to Joseph Beuys' expanded concept of art and thus puts the two artists in relation to each other.

This work is a retrospective exhibition print of the actual unique specimen, which was the first photographic work in the collection. The original was donated to mumok (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) in 2004.
(Christoph Fuchs)

The Collaboartions series was inspired by the idea of cross-border dialogue. All works were conceived together with the artists depicted. This work was realised in collaboration with Joseph Beuys. The works of the series not only show a special, cross-over attitude of artists, but also illustrate the state of communication between the artists themselves. A discourse as a cross-border dialogue from artist to artist. "The mediating element is not the picture, but rather an artistic gesture or performative attention to the other. The deconstruction of most pictures as a turning away from the picture, towards a mediation between the forms of expression of two artistic positions. The works were a form of communication that sought its commitment in a functional processual collaboration instead of a prototypical individual work with a model character.
(Stephan Reusse)

At the beginning of my student days, my professor Harry Kramer told me from his young years in Paris about a vending machine in which one received a small white invisible photo after inserting coins. This could be moistened with salts and spit supplied with the coins and any image could be made to appear.
For me, I saw in this procedure an opening of possibilities to get a public actionistic/performative access to the photographic development process in daylight.
After much research into earlier photographic process techniques, I was then able to develop an identical process with the help of chemists, with which I was henceforth able to use photos in large formats, which at that time were still elaborately produced, publicly for actions and performances.
On the basis of this process I created in 1982, among others, the Collaborations
The works in the series were driven by the idea of a dialogical process between two artists, using the image of the other as a starting point for an intra-subjective contribution.
The resulting works not only show the open attitude of collaborating artists, but also visually capture the states of communication between the artists. These states of communication were committed to process-based collaboration rather than a prototypical single work with a predetermined character.
In 1985, together with Beuys, a whole series of hats were made visible again with chemical substances on photographs previously transformed into invisible halogen silver.
(Stephan Reusse, January 13, 2023, Instagram)