The action Titus-Iphigenia took place in Frankfurt on 29 and 30 May 1969. It took its name from the plays Titus Andronicus and Iphigenia in Tauris, in which sound extracts were played as the action unfolded. The action took place on a stage, with a horse placed in the background. Joseph Beuys appears dressed in a fur coat, which he quickly takes off: he then imitates the flight of birds, sounding two bronze cymbals, emitting guttural sounds amplified by a microphone, regurgitating fat, feeding sugar to the horse, etc.

Understanding the action involves knowledge of the plays the title is taken from: while these two plays deal with the theme of vengeance, the particularly bloody ending of Titus Andronicus contrasts with the happy ending of Iphigenia in Tauris, and allows us to see in their association an invitation "to the passage from chaos to order, from the notion of sacrifice to that of renaissance" [1] – themes very frequently dealt with by Joseph Beuys. 

The idea of organising chaos, of passing from the shapeless to the crystal-clear, is the very principle of Joseph Beuys' sculpture. It is evoked during the action through several oppositions: fat and sugar, the noises made by the artist and the sound of the cymbals, etc. As for the notion of rebirth, it echoes the episode of the artist's salvation by the Tartars, in which today's Crimea corresponds geographically to Iphigenia's Tauris. By associating himself with an animal, through the fur and the bird imitations, he evokes the transformations of Tartar Shamanic rites, such as the substitution of Iphigenia in extremis by a deer on the pyre that was destined for her. The action is therefore intended to represent an overall renaissance, through the acceptance of a positive and lost form of animality.

Philippe Bettinelli,
Translated by Anna Knight

[1] Florence Malet, "Titus-Iphigenia", in the Joseph Beuys, exhibition catalogue at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1994, p. 310.