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Artist Beuys and his family watching "Raumschiff Enterprise" 1972: "Buy a television to entertain the silent son"
Photo:
Michael Ruetz / Agency Focus
The collector and art educator Franz Joseph van der Grinten, born in 1933, was a friend of Joseph Beuys, he witnessed how the artist became a world star.
Beuys, a provocateur, invented the art of Fettecke and organized performances with a dead rabbit, among other things, he dared more than many others at the time.
In 1979, SPIEGEL dedicated a cover story to him: "The greatest - world fame for a charlatan?"
Van der Grinten had known Beuys since the early post-war period.
He and his older brother Hans, two farmer sons interested in art, first spent their pocket money and later their earnings on buying art.
They brought together 6,000 works from Beuys alone.
In 1990 they donated their collection to a foundation.
The lively, sometimes very cheerful conversation with Franz Joseph van der Grinten took place at his home at the end of August, on the Lower Rhine.
The occasion was the upcoming Beuys year, 2021 will be the 100th anniversary of the artist's birthday.
Last week Franz Joseph van der Grinten died unexpectedly, he had suffered a stroke.
His children have agreed to posthumous publication.
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