Joseph Beuys's commitment to his final major project, Difesa della Natura (Defense of Nature), 1972–86, is captured faithfully in this museum-quality exhibition. Carried out mostly on the estate of his patrons Baron "Buby" Durini and his wife, Baroness Lucrezia de Domizio, during the last fifteen years of his life, the project—in which Beuys planted endangered species of trees and shrubs in a vineyard, harvested grapes, and analyzed wine—was the artist's most ambitious attempt to articulate his beliefs in the interconnectedness of man and nature and in art's ability to spark social change. The massive series—a collection of sundry bottles of oil, sacks of grain, kegs of wine, modified agricultural tools, documentary photographs, drawings, and miscellaneous objects—achieves a sense of grand significance rare in commercial-gallery shows; Milan-based curator Antonio d'Avossa has taken a careful, almost anthropological approach to its presentation. On view in North America for the first time, Defense of Nature elaborately reveals the complex internal ecology of Beuys's art and provides an essential view of the artist's process and romantic philosophy.

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Joseph Beuys, Tripala (Three-Bladed Spatula), 1984. From the series Difesa della Natura" (Defense of Nature), 1972–86.

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