Exhibition: MoMA, New York - Focus: Joseph Beuys

Dates: May 21, 2008-Ongoing

Location: The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Painting and Sculpture Galleries, fourth floor

Biography: Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) is widely understood to be the most important German artist of the post-World War II period. His work is highly provocative and always controversial. He and his peers reinvented a thriving avant-garde after the long period of Nazi repression. Beuys' influence is comparable to that of the American artist Andy Warhol, but whereas Warhol's work features a style and imagery that is readily accessible, Joseph Beuys intentionally devised a challenging formal vocabulary, layered with meaning and metaphor. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a new acquisition: a set of five vitrines accompanied by two wall objects, constituting a mini-museum of works made between 1948 and 1982. MoMA.org