Beuys’s ashes in Bellatin and the ritual of the dead hare: human crosses

Abstract

The experiences of contemporary art are often produced in spaces of relation and deviation. Under this perspective, literature can be read according to multiple processes that contaminate one another. This article seeks to address the core aspects relating the book Lecciones para una liebre muerta de Mario Bellatin with the play “How to explain pictures to a dead hare” by Joseph Beuys in order to analyze the notion of art that appears in the basis of the artistic processes. The imagetic of the Bueys’ performance in “Lecciones para una liebre muerta” is a metamorphosed unexpectedness, Beuys emerges as vestige of Bellatin’s work, there is no appropriation of its content nor does it require any correspondence. The fissure within knowledge is improved by it, manifesting itself as “secret sign” that does not seek to clarify anything through equivalence rationale. The pedagogical character of these “lessons” does not allow for the teaching a hierarchical relationship, instead it depicts a plea for the teaching provided by art as it expands the sensitive perceptions of the human being.