A collection of materials and essays contextualizing a performance by Christiansen and Nørgaard in homage to Joseph Beuys. Joseph Beuys performed one of his most radical pieces, the action Manressa, on December 15, 1966, at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf. He was accompanied by the Danish artists Henning Christiansen and Bjørn Nørgaard, who, in 1994, created Manresa Hauptbahnhof (Manresa, Central Station), a new performance in homage to the original. The performance was carried out in Manresa, the city that both gave the name to the original action and was where Saint Ignatius Loyola had the revelations that led him to write his Spiritual Exercises, which Beuys considered essential reading. This book brings together all the material related to the 1994 performance—including images, scripts, and preparatory drawings—as well as a selection of critical texts that situate the action within its European context. In one essay, Friedhelm Mennekes analyses the action by delving into its spiritual meaning, exploring the symbolism of the objects employed. In another, Pilar Parcerias uses the metaphor of the central station to discover the city of reference and redraw the map of Europe with unexpected connections between Manresa and Copenhagen. In the final essay, Peter van der Meijden contextualizes the two performances, which represented a meeting place for different artistic personalities working on the cutting edge in creating a new form of art.    

The first performances by Joseph Beuys were a radical turning point for twentieth-century art. Beuys saw art as a transformative action that is both personal and communal, and his expanded artistic practice engaged spirituality, personal mythology, political structures, and symbolic materials. For Manresa, one of his legendary performance actions, which took place on December 15, 1966 in Dusseldorf, he collaborated with the Danish artists Henning Christiansen and Bjorn Norgaard. This book presents never-before-seen materials from the performance, including texts, images, scripts, and preparatory drawings, alongside contributions from scholars and critics that offer further insight. Friedhelm Mennekes, an art critic and Jesuit priest, analyses Saint Ignatius of Loyola's imprint on Beuys's work while elucidating its spiritual complexity, looking beyond the popular vision of the artist as shaman. Pilar Parcerisas examines Beuys's spiritual geography, explaining the importance the town of Manresa within it and also laying out the physical and mystical coordinates of Eurasia, a site that was always present in Beuys's work. Klaus-D. Pohl addresses the paradoxical union between Beuys's mysticism and the neo-Dadaists of Fluxus. Beuys's collaborator Bjorn Norgaard recalls his time working with the German artist and reflects on the paths he opened up. Finally, art historian Harald Szeemann considers the possibility of liberating politics through spirituality.