Titus Andronicus/Iphigenie

I wrote a line about beauty being the beginning of silence
a pyramid of soundlessness above a white bed

An intuitive synchronicity guided me
as I arranged unrelated
photographs of Joseph Beuys with a book from the 50s

The idea of Greek drapery
flowed into
an action/performance:
Titus Andronicus/Iphigenie

It was Earth Day

I imagined clicking ‘like’ on a picture of a cat

and the cat saying
Oh
spare me


Seriously
spare me…

And
Joseph Beuys
calming the
creature

With an
explanation
of sound

How
the simple act
of
perceiving vibrations

Creates
a white bed

&
revolution anew

Casting
obsolete paradigms
aside.

One of Joseph Beuys’ most powerful performances was Titus Andronicus/Iphigenie, performed May-June, 1969 in the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt, Germany for Experimenta 3: http://ropac.net/exhibition/iphigenie

Iphigenia is a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology.

Photographs of Joseph Beuys performance: Joseph Beuys foundation. Personal Beauty and Charm published by The Homemaker’s Encyclopedia Inc. 1952. I do not own the copyright any of these photographs. I have refashioned them under fair use provisions to create a new work for non-commercial purposes of parody or commentary.

