"To provoke means to evoke something. By making a sculpture with fat or a piece of clay I evoke something. I ignite a thought within me- a totally original, totally new thought that has never existed in history, even if I deal with a historical fact or with Leonardo or Rembrandt. I myself determine history- it is not history that determines me....every man is a potential provocateur." Joseph Beuys, from an interview with Willoughby Sharp, 1969, as quoted in Energy Plan for the Western Man, Joseph Beuys in America, compiled by Carin Kuoni, Four Walls Eight Windows, NY, 1993, p.86.
Beuys was involved in the Fluxus movement but was heavily influenced by Duchamp and the idea of readymade, taking objects and turning them into art by calling them art. Beuys believed that everyone is an artist and that art is not confined to the production of things that we call art and display in galleries but that art is the process of interaction that incites and provokes. His performance art was meant to make people think. His concept of "social sculpture" was the idea that the entire society should be seen as one artwork that every person should be contributing to.
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