Skip navigation  Viola Michely  Viola Michely is a writer and
curator and teaches art and philosophy at the August-Macke
School, Bonn.  Titles by This Editor  The Reader  Twentieth-
century artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)—legendary and self-
mythologizing, enigmatic and controversial—remains an important
influence on artists today. Beuys embraced radically democratic
artistic and political ideas, proclaiming "Everyone is an
artist," and advocating direct democracy through referenda. He
famously worked with such nontraditional materials as felt, fat,
and plants and animals both alive and dead.