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A wooden box with stenciled lettering in black paint on the cover.

The hinged wooden box has stenciled lettering in black paint which reads, “In Memoriam, George Maciunas, Edition Block Berlin.” The box contains a wooden sculpture made of a y-shaped tree branch with eight broken smaller branches attached along its length. There is a wedge-shaped gray felt sculpture, a rectangular length of black paper with a y-shaped design with eight bars drawn across its length, and a print with the photograph of a man wearing a gorilla mask with his hands raised next to his head, palms out, fingers outstretched, thumbs in his ears. It reads, “George Maciunas 1933-1978” “Klavierduett Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik” Fluxus soirée der Galerie René Block in der Aula der Staatlichen Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Freitag, 7 Juli 1978, 20 Uhr.”

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1995.540
People
Joseph Beuys, German (Krefeld, Germany 1921 - 1986 Düsseldorf, Germany)
Nam June Paik, American (Seoul, South Korea 1932 - 2006 Miami, FL)
Galerie René Block, Berlin
Title
In Memoriam George Maciunas
Classification
Multiples
Work Type
portfolio, multiple
Date
1984-1986
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/218869

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Portfolio of felt sculpture, wood sculpture, two phonograph records, and screenprint in wood box
Dimensions
box closed: 13 × 61.7 × 41 cm (5 1/8 × 24 5/16 × 16 1/8 in.)
box open: 51.5 × 61.7 × 45 cm (20 1/4 × 24 5/16 × 17 11/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: on box lid at c.c., black paint, stencil: IN MEMORIAM / GEORGE MACIUNAS / EDITION BLOCK BERLIN

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Willy and Charlotte Reber, Basel and Valbella Switzerland (after 1986 - 1995); sold to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1995.

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Edition
13 / 47
Standard Reference Number
Edition Block 48c

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, The Willy and Charlotte Reber Collection, Louise Haskell Daly Fund
Copyright
© Nam June Paik Estate
Accession Year
1995
Object Number
1995.540
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Victoria Bunting, "Fat, Sulphur, Chocolate, and Blood: Storage Preservation and a Condition Survey for a Large Collection of Works by Joseph Beuys" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1996), Unpublished, passim
  • Sook-Kyung Lee and Rudolf Frieling, ed., Nam June Paik, exh. cat., Tate Publishing (London, 2019), pp. 132, 135, 139, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu