Arena

Episode Synopsis

Joseph Beuys was one of the most prominent and controversial German artists of the past 30 years. Sculptor, performance artist, teacher and maverick politician - when he died last year Beuys left behind him a unique and provocative inheritance. Paradoxically his irreverent art now fills the museums of the world and is bought and sold for fortunes. Tonight's programme follows Beuys's remarkable career from World War LT, when as a Stuka pilot he crashed in the Crimea, to his increasingly political role in post-war Germany as co-founder of the Green Party. Did he achieve his goal and help to heal the wounds of German history through art, or was he finally a charlatan? Arena investigates.