I Like America and America Likes Me

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I Like America
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For the song, see
I Like America & America Likes Me (song)
.
I Like America
and America Likes Me
ArtistJoseph Beuys
Year1974
MediumPerformance, documentary photographs, video

I Like America and America Likes Me, also known as Coyote, was a 1974 performance by conceptual artist Joseph Beuys.

Description

In 1974, the German conceptual artist landed in a New York City airport whereupon assistants wrapped him in felt and brought him to the René Block Gallery in

tape recording of turbines.[2]

At the end of the performance, Beuys, still wrapped in felt, returned home in the same manner whence he came.[1]

Caroline Tisdall, Beuys's collaborator and travel companion, documented the performance in black and white photographs.[3]

Symbolism

At the time of this performance, Beuys was already well known as a provocative German visual artist who used materials—felt and animal fat—based on his mythologized personal history: As a downed fighter pilot, a Tartar tribesman nursed Beuys back to health by insulating him in those materials. The felt in which Beuys wrapped himself during I Like America and America Likes Me was a therapeutic and shamanic symbol for Beuys through which he and his "social sculptures" (such as this performance) sought to heal societal psychic wounds.[1]

During this time, Beuys saw the United States as divided over

positivistic. His selection of the coyote, a Native American symbol of transformation and trickery, invoked its Native creation myth of the Promethean teacher teaching humans to survive. Whereas settlers viewed coyotes as an aggressive predator to be exterminated, to Beuys, the coyote symbolized America's spirit. Beuys felt that America needed to reckon with the coyote to lift its trauma.[1] It was Beuys's first trip to the United States. He had refused prior invitations based on American involvement in the Vietnam War, but agreed to travel given the country's exit from the war.[4]

The performance's title, I Like America and America Likes Me, also recalls the

7-Up soda advertising slogan,[5] "You like it. It likes you."[6] The piece is also known as Coyote.[7]

Reception and legacy

The performance's lesson, wrote Artsy, is that American societal trauma can only be healed through direct communication.[1]

Artsy wrote that the piece's title, evoking the melting pot metaphor for Americanization, stood in contrast with the divisions Beuys saw in America.[1]

Photographs from the performance were shown at the Edinburgh Festival, where they greatly affected the future artist

RoseLee Goldberg too found the photographs poetic, only to be changed by a video of the performance in which she saw the sadness of the coyote.[8] Artifacts from the performance were later exhibited in "Neues vom Coyoten" ("News from the Coyote") at the Ronald Feldman Gallery.[9]

References

  1. ^
    Artsy. Archived
    from the original on January 24, 2018. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  2. ^ Russell, John (October 28, 1979). "The Shasan Aras Artist". The New York Times.
  3. ^ a b "The man who fell to earth". The Guardian. July 19, 1999.
  4. ISBN 9780941920308
    – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Dreiss, Joseph (September 20, 1974). "Joseph Beuys". Arts Magazine. Vol. 49, no. 1. Arts Communications Group, L.P. – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Williams, Roy H. "branding, Entrepreneur – Marketing Judo". Entrepreneur.
  7. ISBN 9788885203488 – via Internet Archive
    .
  8. ISBN 9783037640340 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
    )
  9. ISBN 9788885203488 – via Internet Archive
    .

Further reading

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