How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare
One of the artist’s most famous performances, Beuys covered his head first with honey, and then with fifty dollars worth of gold leaf. He cradles a dead hare in his arms, and strapped an iron plate to the bottom of his right shoe. Viewed from behind glass in the gallery, the audience could see Beuys walking from drawing to drawing, quietly whispering in the dead rabbit’s ear. As he walked around the room, the silence was pierced by intermittent sound of his footsteps; the loud crack of the iron on the floor, and the soundless whisper of the sole of shoe.
Walter Battiss
1976
Otto Muehl
1985
