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Joseph Beuys Essentials

Shot down over Crimea

Boyes called one episode of his biography the moment the artist was born in him: during the Second World War, he, a Luftwaffe radio operator, was shot down over the Crimea. The local residents, the Tatars, picked it up and rescued it, smearing it with grease and wrapping it in felt. This is why unconventional materials such as felt and fat are central to his work. But this story is just a legend.

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