Joseph Beuys

Joseph Heinrich Beuys was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and, with Heinrich Böll, Johannes Stüttgen, Caroline Tisdall, Robert McDowell, and Enrico Wolleb, created the Free International University for Creativity & Interdisciplinary Research (FIU). He previously in his talks and performances also formed The Party for Animals and The Organisation for Direct Democracy. He was a member of a Dadaist art movement Fluxus and singularly inspirational in developing of Performance Art, called Kunst Aktionen, alongside Wiener Aktionismus that Allan Kaprow and Carolee Schneemann termed Art Happenings. Today, internationally, the largest performance art group is BBeyond in Belfast, led by Alastair MacLennan who knew Beuys and like many adapts Beuys's ethos.

12 May 1921

Born on the same birth date (12 May 1921): Farley Mowat

Born on the same birth day (12 May): Daniel Libeskind • Dorothy Hodgkin • Emilio Estevez • Emily VanCamp • Farley Mowat • Felipe Alou • Florent Amodio • Franz Anton Hoffmeister • Gustav Vasa • J. E. H. MacDonald • Jonah Lomu • José de la Mar • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg • Kostas Tsimikas • Lance Lynn • Mary Kay Ash • Michael Ignatieff • Orélie-Antoine de Tounens • Otto Frank • Pompeo Colonna • Rami Malek • Stephen Baldwin • Tom Snyder • Ving Rhames

Born in the same month (May 1921): B. B. Lal • Bob Godfrey • Edo Murtić • Federico Krutwig • Jack Steinberger • Kitty Kallen • Leslie Broderick • Richard Deacon (actor) • Satyajit Ray