Culture’s Learning

Abstract

As I attempt to understand how the ironic and irenic converge in defiance of each other within a work of art, two works come to mind: Joseph Beuys’s La Rivoluzione siamo noi! (We are the revolution, 1972) and Maurizio Cattelan’s work with the same title (2000). While it could be argued that Cattelan’s adoption of the same title is itself an ironic jest, one must seek to understand his actual critique in his double take on (a) Beuys’s work per se; and (b) Beuys’s critique of a fixed notion of revolution.