“Zeige Deine Wunde” (show me your wound)
Joseph Beuys didn't make pretty art.
When I was 12, I saw an exhibit he had at the Guggenheim in NY. As its centerpiece was a 3,000 pound block of lard, wrapped in felt. It was bizarre, it smelled a bit and forty or more years later, I haven't forgotten it.
Beuys was transformed by near-death experiences he had as a youth. And that wound informed the art that he made. He shared his pain and more than that, the route to his salvation.
This isn't what we want from everything in our lives. We often choose convenience, solace or reassurance. But more often than we realize, the dance with fear and mortality and risk that others engage in becomes part of our cultural landscape.