Drawing · Travel · Research in progress
Joseph
Beuys
A drawing journey through the places, works and traces of an artist.
I am working on a graphic novel about the life of Joseph Beuys. These journeys are part of that work: returning to the places where he lived and worked, spending time with his art, and drawing what I encounter along the way.
Eight illustrated essays follow the journey from Cologne to Düsseldorf and Krefeld.
Düsseldorf
Public space, museum galleries and a family home: four encounters with the city where Beuys lived, worked and taught.
Joseph Beuys: The Only Oak in Düsseldorf
Near Horionplatz, a single oak and a basalt stele quietly connect Düsseldorf to 7000 Oaks. Following this easily overlooked presence, the journey explores Beuys’s idea of social sculpture: art as a living process that involves citizens, transforms public space and continues to act over time.
Read the storyChannelDraw Map / Joseph Beuys
Mapping the journey
Eight illustrated essays, three cities. The places behind the research, mapped across Germany.
Beuys in Düsseldorf: Visiting K20 with Klee, Beckmann, and Contemporary Art
Inside the K20, the search for Beuys opens onto the wider history of German modernity. Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and the museum’s postwar origins frame an encounter with The End of the XXth Century, where basalt, felt and clay bring questions of damage, care and responsibility into view.
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Joseph Beuys – Palazzo Regale: Art as Transformation
A return to the K20 leads to Palazzo Regale, the installation Beuys first presented in Naples shortly before his death. Brass panels, gold dust and personal objects create a space between biography and meditation, inviting reflection on human dignity, creative potential and art’s capacity for transformation.
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Drakeplatz 4: Joseph Beuys’ Home and Studio
At Drakeplatz 4 in Oberkassel, an ordinary-looking building holds the traces of a life in which family, work and conversation were closely intertwined. Visits to the house, together with Eva Beuys’s photographs and archival accounts, help reconstruct the everyday spaces behind the artist’s public image.
Read the storyFROM THE ARCHIVE / 2021–2022
Sketchbook
Nineteen drawings from my research on Joseph Beuys. Faces, works and fragments of a life, collected in a notebook to leaf through.
The research continues.
GIANLUCA COSTANTINI
CHANNELDRAW
Turn the pages · Swipe on mobile · Click the right drawing to go forward, the left to go back
Cologne
A small gesture at the cathedral becomes a way into mentorship, reconstruction and the afterlife of an image.
The Bishop’s Door: Beuys, Mataré, and the Echo of History
A visit to Cologne Cathedral follows the traces of the young Beuys and his teacher, Ewald Mataré. A small mirror, set among recovered mosaic tiles and later lost, becomes a way to reflect on postwar reconstruction, the fragility of an artwork and the persistence of memory.
Read the storyKrefeld
The journey moves from the city to the installation, then out into the unstable spaces of modernist houses.
Krefeld and the Shadow of Beuys
The journey to Krefeld begins at the station and continues through a city shaped by the silk industry. Inside the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, encounters with Expressionism, Marcel Duchamp and Dan Graham gradually lead toward the Beuys Rooms—and a doorway that is almost passed without noticing what lies beyond.
Read the storyBarraque D’Dull Odde: Two Rooms, One Tension
Entering Barraque D’Dull Odde means moving between two rooms whose contrasting atmospheres form a single field of tension. Objects, materials and the circulation of water unsettle the distinction between thought and matter, turning the museum visit into an experience of hesitation, perception and return.
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Haus Lange and Haus Esters: Entering and Getting Lost
At Haus Lange and Haus Esters, Mies van der Rohe’s modernist architecture becomes part of the encounter with art. Gregor Schneider’s altered rooms disturb the apparent clarity of the houses, while the gardens and works by other artists extend the research into material, light, memory and the experience of space.
Read the storyAn ongoing investigation
Before the book,
the journey.
These articles document stages of my research for a graphic novel dedicated to Joseph Beuys. Drawing is part of the investigation: a way of looking closely at spaces, objects and the relationships between them.
This page brings together the first eight essays. Each opens the original article, with its drawings and the full account of the visit. The collection will grow as the research continues.
Begin with The Bishop’s Door ↗
Editorial collaboration / April 2026
The journey
on Artribune
Published by Artribune in April 2026 and edited by Alex Urso, this three-part illustrated series follows my research through the K20, Palazzo Regale and Beuys’s home at Drakeplatz 4.
Texts and drawings by Gianluca Costantini · Edited by Alex Urso · Articles in Italian.
Travel journal / Germany · August–September 2025
Voyager dans
l’Europe
A journey through Germany in the footsteps of Joseph Beuys. Announced on 20 August 2025, the itinerary runs from 22 August to 4 September, taking in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Krefeld, Kleve, Darmstadt and Munich.
Travel becomes a way of pursuing the research: leaving with a purpose, following a deliberate route, and returning with drawings, encounters and new questions.
Read the travel journal →