The tenth and last room of the Joseph Beuys exhibition at Tate Modern (until 2 May) contains Economic Values, a piece from 1980. It consists of metal shelving stacked with household goods in bottles, packets and bags, all bought in what was then the GDR. They have, as Beuys intended, begun to disintegrate. The walls of the room are, as he requested, hung with '19th-century paintings in gold frames from the host museum'. Their dates fall within the lifetime of Karl Marx. The bags and packets had a 'simplicity and authenticity' which reminded Beuys of his childhood. They tell us that 'we do not need all that we are meant to buy today to satisfy profit-based capitalism.' The pictures point the finger at bourgeois taste. The whole is a symbolic tableau to which the categories of illustration or didactic window display are as appropriate as that of art. Think of magazine spreads which show the difference between what the average family eats in a year in country A and country B, or showcases near airport customs posts containing a jumble of prohibited imports - a stuffed baby crocodile, fireworks, forbidden fruits, seeds.

LRB 17 March 2005 | PDF Download