Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys I Like America and America Likes Me 1974

With a title full of irony, one of Beuys' most recognisable performance works is a political piece expressing Beuys' negative opinions of America and it's military actions, challenging American art at the time by being held in America itself in New York. An area of interest for me is researching types of influential activist art, of which Beuys was a major part of.

Although the use of the live coyote in this piece is metaphorical, supposedly seeing the coyote as a symbol for the damage done by white men to the American continent and it's native cultures (Tate website, exhibitions and events) I was interested in his use of the coyote and how the coyote is seen in society of which Beuys comments on. Traditionally in American native cultures the Coyote had a god-like mythological status, but now in modern American society it is valued as no more than a pest or vermin, which made me think of Kimbell's work One night with rats in the service of art in which she researched and combined the contemporary perspectives of rats in society..

I am interested in Beuys' due to his use of human and animal relationships within a range of his works, alongside his stance as a socially engaged artist with a fascination with the environment and political issues he could contribute to through art.