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Title: "EL Loko and Joseph Beuys: Shifting Perspectives on the Düsseldorf Art Academy and Post-War „Shamanism"

Abstract: This paper examines the encounter between Togolese art student El Loko and his mentor Joseph Beuys at the (in)famous Düsseldorf Art Academy in the 1970s. El Loko's writings and art shed light on the challenges faced by an African migrant in the West German art world, which, despite its aspirations, had not overcome racism or primitivist notions. I explore their collaboration as an asymmetrical exchange, yet one still defined by mutual invention and appropriation. By doing so, the German myth of 'Shaman Beuys' is recontextualized within post-war knowledge production and artistic practices that are inseparable from the history of migration.

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