in online exhibition 55 Years of Schellmann Art
Telephon S––––Ǝ (Telephone T––––Я), 1974
Part of Two Fluxus Objects (together with Green Violin)
Two tin cans, one with symbols in brown paint (Braunkreuz), 180 cm string, and paper tag. 204 x 10 x 10 cm. Edition: 24 + VI (6 with brown painted symbol also on second can), all signed and numbered on paper tag. 5 A.P., signed, not numbered.
Schellmann 136
Joseph Beuys described this edition to Jörg Schellmann and Bernd Klüser in 1970:
“With the two tin cans I took the most childish form of communication—just two cans—and marked them with a positive and a negative pole. These signs mean that the communication has to be seen in a universal context. The form of the cans can be stretched out; this alone provides the meaning. The cans cannot do that by themselves, they simply suggest a quite basic process: the concept of transmitter and receiver… that means two stations, whether they are single individuals or groups linked together. A piece of string connecting the two, a positive and a negative pole, and the two can communicate with each other. That doesn’t constitute a statement about what a contemporary theory of information might be. Tin cans can’t do that, but they can suggest it—initiate ideas—if an intuitive person encounters it.”
The title S – Ǝ abbreviates Sender – Empfänger (“Transmitter – Receiver”), distilling the work to its essential premise: communication as a dynamic, reciprocal process.
The work is in the collections of various major museums, including MoMA, New York; The Broad, Los Angeles; the National Galleries of Scotland; and the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
