untitled

Foto: Charles Wilp

C-print mounted on black cardboard

signed (ink) on recto by Joseph Beuys

Originally part of the series " Naturerfahrung in Afrika " consisting of 16 colour photographs by Charles Wilp.

The photographer Charles Wilp from Dusseldorf was a close friend of the artist Joseph Beuys. 1974-1975, Wilp and Beuys travelled to Diani at the Kenyan coast. Several works, documented by Wilp, have been created there.

This picture shows Beuys without his normally typical hat and therefore became an exemplary visual representation: the fact, that Joseph Beuys never took off his “Stetson”, "a normal, classical, English hat", was often a hard test of patience for his listeners and spectators. The so often tense atmosphere only was cheered up once the artist took off […] the famous piece and showed his bald head and said: “It is not about the old war injury on the head, I did wear a cap in former times. Then came the hat, at first a quirk, later essential: people wanted the hat.” Although this scene was documented many times and found a pictorial form in 1975, it was part of nearly every event with Beuys.

(Franz-Joachim Verspohl, "Joseph Beuys – das ist erst einmal dieser Hut." in: Kritische Berichte, Jg. 14, Heft 4, 1986, S. 77–87)/ translated