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“Open letter” sent by Broodthaers to Joseph Beuys on 28 September 1972 in reference to the exhibition «Amsterdam - Paris - Düsseldorf» inaugurated on 5 October at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which saw the his participation with the Düsseldorf artists group. The text, presented by Broodthaers as the transcription of a letter from Jacques Offenbach to Richard Wagner, is a reflection on the relationship between art and politics in which Broodthaers, taking inspiration from Wagner’s book «Art and Revolution» (1849), expresses his own position refractory to the assimilation of politics to art. The letter was published a few days later in German under the title «Politik der Magie? » RHEINISCHE POST, Düsseldorf, 3 October 1972, and simultaneously distributed in leaflets reproducing in facsimile the manuscript of the French original and those of the German and English versions. Curiously, only in the English version is it specified that the copy of Stendhal’s book, in the post scriptum, was annotated by Offenbach (“With notes in Offenbach’s hand”). [see: Benjamin Buchloh, «Beuys: the twilight of the Idol», in AA.VV., «Joseph Beuys. Mapping the Legacy», The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 201: pag. 210).
