Writing in 1976 about Joseph Beuys and his work, Germano Celant said, “Desires and aspirations are wings. There are desires and yearnings so little adapted to the situation of our earthly life that we can argue the existence of a situation in which they become the powerful wings of an element that will lift them up, of islands where they will be able to come to rest.”

I imagine Beuys’ Plight, 1985, as a barrier to the great flight of energy from contemporary culture caused by his passing. Completed only two months before his death this January, Plight seemed Beuys’ attempt to intervene in the