Joseph Beuys
Filzanzug

Hanging on a clothes rack, the first exemplars of the edition Filzanzug were offered for sale at the Cologne art market in 1970. The felt suits, which according to Beuys’ explanations are not to be understood as items of clothing but as objects, are tailored according to the artist’s suit measurements, with only the arms and legs being slightly longer. They are made without details such as buttons or lapels because, as Beuys explained in a conversation: “You have to leave the felt character, leave out all the little things, for example complicated turn-ups, buttons, buttonholes etc. and if someone wants to wear it, they can fasten it with safety pins. […] The warmth character – yes, that’s clear. The felt suit is not just a gag, but an extension of my felt sculptures, which I also made in performances.”¹
One such independent felt sculpture is Infiltration homogen für Konzertflügel (1966), which goes back to an action at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1966, in which Beuys used a felt covering to isolate and silence the sound of a concert grand piano. Beuys had also worked with an insulating felt covering in the “Fluxus song” Der Chef/The Chief – his first Berlin action in the Galerie Block on December 1, 1964. He had himself wrapped in a roll of felt for over eight hours and thus sealed off from the outside world, whereby sounds of the artist from inside the roll penetrated the gallery space via a microphone and loudspeaker system. Two dimensions of isolation are also present in the Filzanzug: “On the one hand, it is a house, a cave that isolates people from everything else. On the other hand, it is a sign of the isolation of man in our time. Felt acts as an insulator!”² Although the Filzanzug is conceived as an independent felt sculpture, Beuys once wore it himself during Terry Fox’s performance Isolation Unit, which he performed together with the artist in the basement of the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1970. The edition catalogue of Edition Block shows Beuys in the suit during the performance.
For the production of the suits, the Berlin tailor Ernst Aich had made a pattern from paper and cardboard, parts of which Beuys later used for Osiris (1970/79), a large-format montage of the pattern parts on canvas (approx. 200 × 300 cm). Beuys’ initial concept was to show Osiris together with two damaged suits from the edition and a long felt wedge from his last exhibition at Galerie Block in 1979 “Ja, jetzt brechen wir hier den Scheiß ab”,³ but changed the form of presentation of Osiris when it was sold. On the occasion of the 1985 Peace Biennale in Hamburg, the two damaged suits from the edition and the felt wedge went into a separate display case, which Beuys was no longer able to authorize.
The suits in the edition have a numbered label attached to the inside pocket of the jacket with a safety pin; some suits have a round stamp print above the indicated breast pocket, but like most of Beuys’ edition objects in the Edition Block, they are not signed.
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte

¹ Beuys, in: Jörg Schellmann, Bernd Klüser, »Fragen an Joseph Beuys«, in: Jörg Schellmann (ed.), Joseph Beuys. Die Multiples. Werkverzeichnis der Auflagenobjekte und Druckgraphik, München, New York, 7th revised edition 1992, pp. 9-28, p. 16.

² Beuys, in: Keto von Waberer, »Das Nomadische spielt eine Rolle von Anfang an. Interview mit Joseph Beuys«, in: Carl Haenlein (Hg.), Joseph Beuys. Eine innere Mongolei, Exhib. Cat., Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover 1990, p. 197–221, here p. 206.