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

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

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

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

in an ambulance. There Beuys spent three consecutive days, for eight hours a day, living with a live

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

. Beuys attempted to connect with the animal by repeating symbolic gestures such as throwing leather gloves, gesticulating with a cane, and cloaking himself like a shepherd with the cane sticking out. The coyote was docile and occasionally hostile, tugging at the artist's felt. Beuys occasionally played a

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

and a

tape recording An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

s. At the end of the performance, Beuys, still wrapped in felt, returned home in the same manner whence he came. Caroline Tisdall, Beuys's collaborator and travel companion, documented the performance in black and white photographs.

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 fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and ...

, 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. During this time, Beuys saw the United States as divided over its involvement in the Vietnam War and its racial divisions and subjugation, and wanted his performance to address the split between Native and European intelligence, the latter being more materialistic,

mechanistic The mechanical philosophy is a form of natural philosophy which compares the universe to a large-scale mechanism (i.e. a machine). The mechanical philosophy is associated with the scientific revolution of early modern Europe. One of the first expo ...

, and

positivistic Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

. His selection of the coyote, a Native American symbol of transformation and trickery, invoked its Native

creation myth A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop ...

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

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soda advertising slogan, "You like it. It likes you." The piece is also known as ''Coyote''.

Reception and legacy

The performance's lesson, wrote ''Artsy'', is that American societal trauma can only be healed through direct communication. ''Artsy'' wrote that the piece's title, evoking the

melting pot The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous throug ...

metaphor for

Americanization Americanization or Americanisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the America, United ...

, stood in contrast with the divisions Beuys saw in America. Photographs from the performance were shown at the Edinburgh Festival, where they greatly affected the future artist Jimmy Boyle. The curator 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. Artifacts from the performance were later exhibited in "german: label=none, Neues vom Coyoten" ("News from the Coyote") at the Ronald Feldman Gallery.

Description

Symbolism

Reception and legacy

References

Further reading