Joseph Beuys

German avant-garde artist Beuys, who died in 1986, was a spiritual founder of the Green Party, darling of the international art world, utopian political activist and single-minded art professor who saw art as a source of regeneration, an antidote to ``the schizophrenia of our age.'' His belief that art and life should flow into one another, a tenet of the neo-dadaist fluxus movement he helped organize, is reflected in his use of materials like fat, felt and honey, his shamanistic Action performances and his installations, sculptures and empathic animal drawings, according to the author. German art critic Stachelhaus also traces Beuys's unsuccessful 1979 bid for the European Parliament as Green Party candidate and his establishment of free universities across Europe. Although Beuys, wayfarer, democratic anarchist and visionary, remains an enigmatic figure, this intellectually stimulating biography shows that his art and political activism flowed from the same source. Photos. (Apr.)