Invisible Territories

art as a dispute over space and meaning in the works of Joseph Beuys

Abstract

This article analyzes how the work of Joseph Beuys transforms contemporary art into a symbolic territory of dispute, activating gestures and materials that reframe space and reorganize the collective imaginary. The investigation departs from the central question: in what ways does his production reconfigure the artistic territory as a symbolic space of consecration and confrontation? To address this, the research adopts an interdisciplinary approach that articulates art, anthropology, and psychology, drawing on the ideas of Mircea Eliade, Carl Gustav Jung, and Clifford Geertz. It explores how Beuys’s concept of social sculpture functions as a founding and restructuring gesture, especially through the use of materials such as felt, fat, and honey, understood here as symbolic catalysts that activate archetypal experiences. The analyses suggest that these elements produce significant shifts in the cultural field, revealing the symbolic dimension of artistic creation as a means of reorganizing the sensible. Rather than simply representing the world, Beuys’s practice appears to establish zones of transformation, challenging the boundaries between myth, politics, and everyday life. By proposing an art that acts directly upon reality, his work points toward new forms of engagement with the collective and with the symbolic systems that shape us. In this sense, the study offers an interpretation that recognizes art as an active territory for cultural reinvention and symbolic reconfiguration.