Die Grünen 'Tierschutz ist = Lebensschutz', felt-tip pen on leaflet, 29.5 cm x 21 cm sheet dimension, signed, dated 24.9.1980, mounted.
The oeuvre of Joseph Beuys is probably permeated like no other by the vision of social reform and artistic scientific work. Since the early 1970s, Joseph Beuys has gained international recognition. He intensifies his political and ecological commitment, which receives ever greater public attention until in 1980 he is once again the top candidate for the party 'Die Grünen' in the federal election campaign on the North-Rhine-Westphalia state list. On the election poster, the signature of Beuys and the artist's well-known hat can be seen on the date, which is noted shortly before the respective election. In addition, a plant, together with its roots, can be seen protruding into the ground, which seems to be marked only by a horizontal line. A straight upward arrow leads from the flower of the plant up to the word light. According to Prof. Dr. Timo Skrandies in the ''Joseph Beuys Handbuch'' published in 2021, three essential aspects usually play together in the artist's diagrams: ''[...] firstly, the hybridity of their form of notation, secondly, their purposeful - almost pedagogical, at least designed for communication - visuality, thirdly, their mode of being supposedly less an independent (individual) work than 'merely' a trace, is in Beuys' diagrams in tension with the argumentative vitality and seductive power that the diagram possesses as a 'mode of revelation' of the wealth and variety of meaning of the social sculpture.''
