Dimensions / 20.3×25.4cm (8x10inch)
Medium / B&W Photograph

In 1968 artist Jörg Immen¬dorff staged an action in which he tied to his leg a block of wood painted in the German national colors and bearing “LIDL,” and walked up and down outside the German parlia¬ment. LIDL is a word coined, like Dada, from the sound that the block of wood makes when dragged, or without any specific meaning, it is open to associations and speculations. In the winter of the same year, Immen¬dorff together with colleague Chris Reinecke organized LIDL Academy, a neo-Dadaist action project in Karl¬sruhe and Düssel¬dorf, and set forth different actions to advocate art and politics, and alternative education. While studying at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, they convened a range of events of ‘LIDL Academy International Work Week’ on 5 – 10 May 1969, influenced and supported by their teacher Joseph Beuys. The banner on the left-hand side of the photograph reads “The academy must be available to those who have a real interest in working in it”; and Beuys wearing his typical felt hat in front. Already faced with criticisms from other professors because of the German Students Party he had founded and his activities to destabilize the existing system of teaching, Beuys put forward political activism as a work of art from then on.