Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys, identified in Andy Warhol’s diary as a German artist, enters the account through two connected encounters in October and November 1979: an unusually crowded day at Warhol’s office and a dinner at the German embassy. Together, they show Beuys moving through the social setting of a proposed portrait and the discussion of an artistic material associated with his work.

Arrival at Warhol’s Office

On October 30, 1979, Beuys arrived at Warhol’s office with his children, Heiner Bastion, and a group of about eight people. Beuys kissed Warhol on the mouth; Warhol recorded feeling nervous and unsure what to talk about. The brief encounter is marked less by conversation than by its startling physical greeting and the narrator’s uncertainty.

The office was already crowded with visitors. Heiner Friedrich and Philippa de Menil came by, while Robert Hayes had Sally Kellerman and Barry Diller there, leaving no room to sit. In the midst of this congestion, Heiner Bastion suggested that Warhol photograph Beuys for a portrait. Warhol instead spent the afternoon photographing Georgia O’Keeffe and Juan Hamilton, working with O’Keeffe until four o’clock before the visitors finally left. The proposed Beuys portrait thus emerged amid competing appointments rather than a private or settled sitting.

The German Embassy Dinner

On November 1, Warhol attended a dinner for Beuys at the German embassy with Fred Hughes, after first going to Ronnie Cutrone’s art opening. Warhol arrived late and missed Beuys’s speech. The account therefore gives no direct record of what Beuys said: the guests afterward reported that the speech had concerned excrement and how effectively Beuys used it.

A Portrait and an Artistic Reputation

The diary links Beuys’s presence to two forms of representation: the portrait Warhol was asked to make and the reported speech about the material Beuys used in his art. Neither encounter develops into a sustained account of Beuys’s ideas or working methods. Instead, the portrait suggestion and the dinner-table report establish his place in Warhol’s social and artistic orbit while leaving the speech itself unheard.