The different roles of Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), as well as his ideas and interpretations of them, have intrigued several generations of artists and theoreticians. Beuys, who was known as a shaman and charlatan during his lifetime, has now become a fascinating example, showing how practices of performance art are incorporated into the art historical narrative and what can happen to them there. I will focus on this question in my review of the retrospective exhibition of Beuys’s work, Joseph Beuys – Parallel Processes,held recently at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Also, it is interesting to note here that the process of reinterpreting Beuys in the form of voluminous retrospectives has started only recently, no less than a quarter of a century after the artist’s death. However, new narratives not only depend on the ambitions of curators. Quite the opposite: decisions are made in dialogue with the capitalist museum system, national historical discourse and numerous private collectors.