Filzkeil (Felt Wegde), 1984-1986

This edition distills Joseph Beuys’s vocabulary of materials into a single, charged form. The wedge of industrial felt – a substance Beuys used throughout his practice for its insulating, protective, and symbolic qualities – embodies the artist’s belief in the transformative potential of materials. Both sculptural object and conceptual proposition, the work points to Beuys’s wider exploration of energy, warmth, and social “activation,” central ideas in his expanded definition of art. Filzkeil exemplifies the quiet intensity and radical simplicity that characterize many of his multiples.

The work is part of the collections of The Broad, Los Angeles, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Harvard Art Museums.