Joseph Sassoon Semah: On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV – How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist

Pre-order your copy now!

The richly illustrated publication:

Joseph Sassoon Semah: On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV – How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist [The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia] will be published in March 2023 on Joseph Beuys and post-war West German art history.

Published by Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten, final editing: Linda Bouws & Joseph Sassoon Semah, design + layout: kunstburo geert schriever, A4, 208 pages, full colour – ISBN 9789090368399

The publication can now be ordered € 49.95 and € 5 shipping costs: Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten, account number NL 42 INGB 0006 9281 68 stating On Friendship IV, name and address.

With contributions from
Joseph Sassoon Semah, Linda Bouws (curator), David de Boer (general practitioner and gallery owner), Albert Groot (psychiatrist), Paul Groot (art historian) Arie Hartog (director Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen), Bas Marteijn (Chief Country Officer Deutsche Bank Netherlands), Eelco Mes (curator), Markus Netterscheidt (artist), Ton Nijhuis (director Duitsland Instituut/UvA), Hans Peter Riegel (author of the four-volume biography Beuys, Die Biographie), Mati Shemoelof (author), Rick Vercauteren (former director Museum Bommel van Dam, publicist and historian), Andreas Wöhle (President Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the Protestant Church).

Brief description
The publication highlights Beuys’ work and thought from different perspectives and his relationship to post-war culture and politics in particular.
Joseph Sassoon Semah’s (1948, Baghdad) work – drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations, performances and texts – provides ample space for critical reflection on identity, history and tradition and is part of the artist’s long research into the relationship between Judaism and Christianity as sources of Western art and culture and of politics.

Joseph Beuys (1921, Krefeld -1986, Düsseldorf) is one of Germany’s most influential post-war artists, who became particularly famous for his performances, installations, lectures and Fluxus concerts. In 2021/22, Joseph Beuys’ 100th birthday was celebrated extensively with the event ‘Beuys 2021. 100 years’.

But who was Beuys really? Joseph Beuys mythologised his wartime past as a national socialist and Germany’s problematic and post-traumatic past. After WWII, Beuys transformed from perpetrator to victim. How should we interpret Beuys in the future?
Joseph Beuys and Joseph Sassoon Semah, two ex-soldiers, two artists. Joseph Beuys was a former gunner and radio operator in the German air force during WWII; Joseph Sassoon Semah served in the Israeli air force. Who is the (authentic) victim and who is the Victimiser?

Performance Joseph Sassoon Semah with Friends – Display of the WOUND

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV
How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]

(September 2021 – February 2023)

Display of the WOUND

Performance Joseph Sassoon Semah with Friends
Baruch Abraham
Masja Austen
Jom Semah

General Practitioner David de Boer
Balthasar Floriszstraat 23
1071 VA Amsterdam

July 10, 2022

A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys
Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws

Camera & editing: Bob Schoo, www.n-p-n.info

© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten 2023

Arie Hartog – Reading Joseph Beuys after Joseph Sassoon Semah

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV -How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist
[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]

A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys
(September 2021 – February 2023)

Lecture: Dr. Arie Hartog, director Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen – Reading Joseph Beuys after Joseph Sassoon Semah

Deutsche Bank Netherlands,
De entree 195, Amsterdam
May 24, 2022

In the Dutch branch of the Deutsche Bank in Amsterdam, an exhibition was set up on two floors – from May 24 to September 24, 2022.
The exhibition was opened by Bas Marteijn, Chief Country Officer of Deutsche Bank Netherlands.

Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws

Camera & editing: Bob Schoo, www.n-p-n.info

© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten 2023

Rick Vercauteren – After Joseph Beuys /After Wolf Vostell /After WWII

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV – How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist

[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]
(September 2021 – February 2023)

A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys

Lecture: Rick Vercauteren – After Joseph Beuys /After Wolf Vostell /After WWII

Two post-war German artists – Wolf Vostell / Jose(f)ph Beuys -As will be clear, both of them became the (symbolic) Victim; Jose(f)ph Beuys a volunteer soldier in the Third Reich transformed himself into the Victim of the Nazi era, and with him, post-war Germany will cure itself.
On the other hand, Wolf Vostell simply transformed himself into a Jew, i.e. the Victim.

Joseph Sassoon Semah 2021

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam
Herengracht 470
Amsterdam

Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws

Camera & editing: Bob Schoo, www.n-p-n.info

© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten 2022

Mati Shemoelof – A Babylonian Jew Named Joseph Sassoon Semah

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV
How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist

[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]

A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys

(September 2021 – February 2023)

Lecture: Mati Shemoelof ‘A Babylonian Jew Named Joseph Sassoon Semah’

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam,
Herengracht 470
Amsterdam
October 28, 2021

Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws

Camera and editing: Bob Schoo, www.n-p-n.info

© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten 2023

Deutsche Bank, Amsterdam. May 24, 2022. On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV
How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist
[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]

(September 2021 – December 2022)
A critical project concerning post-war artist Joseph Beuys.
Created by Joseph Sassoon Semah, curator Linda Bouws
May 24 2022, Deutsche Bank Amsterdam
De entree 195, 1101 HE Amsterdam

כיצד להסביר ציד ארנבות לאמן גרמני מת
[The usefulness of continuous measurement of the distance between Nostalgia and Melancholia]

Please remember, ‘Hare Hunting’ was a [codeword] euphemism for killing Jews by the Nazi troops during the Holocaust.
According to Jewish tradition, the hare is among mammals deemed not kosher, and therefore not eaten by (observant) Jews.

As will be clear, Jose[f]ph Beuys who always already surrounded himself by old Nazis has managed to promote himself as the (symbolic) Victim of the Third Reich in the (extended) territory of Post-Nazi West Germany.
Jose[f]ph Beuys who volunteered to sacrifice himself for the ideology of the Third Reich – succeeded to transform himself symbolically as it were, into the great healer of post-Nazi-Era, and with him, West Germany will cure itself.

Therefore, as a consequence of the need to further the authentic status of The Guest – The Guest was forced on 24 February 1986,
to correct the statement of Jose[f]ph Beuys’: “Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt / How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare” 26 November 1965. Since then, it should be read as follows –
” כיצד להסביר ציד ארנבות לאמן גרמני מת / How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist / Wie man einem toten deutschen Künstler die Hasenjagd erklärt”.

Finally, if the Guest is the symbolic Dead Hare, he may in the [end] has a Voice – in such a context obviously, the Guest’s conversation with the Dead German Artist changes in significance – because the words of the Guest already shifted to a certain power; That is the Guest’s / the Jew’s power to transform Jose[f]ph Beuys the ex-Nazi soldier from a self-made Victim to his original status i.e. the Victimizer.
Basically, we should remember that the actual transformation from a Victimizer to a Victim takes place in radical circumstances.
In our context, this implies that the transformation of post-war Jose[f]ph Beuys into a Victim took place in Post-Nazi West Germany;
Eventually, it would be tempting to say that the authentic Victim ‘The Guest’ i.e., The Jew, cannot be defined by his Victimizer.

Performance

Joseph Sassoon Semah with friends:

Baruch Abraham
Masja Austen
Peter Baren
Bülent Evren
Jom Semah

Camera & editing: Bob Schoo, http://www.n-p-n.info

© Stichting Metropool Internationale Kunstprojecten 2022