I like America and America likes Me
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Joseph Beuys during the action |
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I like America and America likes Me was an action by the German artist Joseph Beuys , which took place from May 21 to 25, 1974 in the René Block gallery in New York .
background
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Multiple |
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In May 1974, managed the gallery owner and friend René Block , who worked already more than ten years with Beuys, him opening his gallery in the bohemian Soho in Manhattan to get to New York City. The gallery was located at 409 West Broadway, in the shadow of the twin towers of the World Trade Center , which Joseph Beuys laid out as a multiple on a postcard in the same year , with a handwritten addition and the title “Cosmos and Damian” , named after the two Saints Cosmas and Damian .
Mythological background
The coyote is a species of dog native to North America that resembles a smaller version of a wolf . The coyote is revered as a sacred animal by the North American natives and plays an active role in the creation of the world in the creation myth of the natives of North America.
Beuys included the animal in his action because he saw in it the elementary forces that defined the former spiritual energies of the Indians, but also their expulsion, resettlement or murder and their consciousness meanwhile in a technologized and commercialized American everyday life and the lack thereof Dialogue between the indigenous people and the former European settlers had been lost.
Joseph Beuys said: “Why do I work with animals to express invisible forces? - You can make these energies very clear when you enter another, long-forgotten realm in which immeasurable forces survive as great personalities. And when I try to speak to the spiritual beings of this ensemble of animals, this raises the question of whether one cannot also speak to the higher beings, these deities and elementals [...] The spirit of the coyote is so powerful that it can no one understands or what it can mean for the future of humanity. [...] I think I had contact with the psychologically sore point in the energy distribution of the USA: the whole American trauma with the Indians, the 'Red Man'. You could say that there is still a bill to settle with the coyote, only then can this trauma be reversed. "
Cultural background
The "I like America and America likes Me" campaign took place at a time when the North American population was particularly influenced by the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the Watergate affair . The armed conflict, or as Beuys called it, “the American trauma” , between the North American natives and the former European conquerors lasted from the first war in 1622 for Jamestown in what is now the state of Virginia until the last century; In February 1973 members of the American Indian Movement, together with sympathizers from the Pine Ridge Reservation, occupied the village of Wounded Knee and proclaimed the independent Oglala nation.
The German image of the Indians was mainly shaped by literature, such as the Winnetou novels by Karl May and their film adaptations, or by Hollywood westerns. In the 19th century, Indians were also exhibited in the context of national shows or shown to the public in the zoo.
Course of action
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Scene during the action (external web link) |
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The campaign began with the departure in Düsseldorf and ended with the arrival in Düsseldorf. When he arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport , Beuys had himself completely wrapped in felt because, as he said, “he didn't want to see anything of America and be isolated from the outside world” . He was then driven by an ambulance into the gallery, where he wanted to spend several days with a coyote named "Little John" in a room in the gallery . During the action, Beuys played with the coyote, disguised himself as a shepherd with a shepherd's stick and felt cloak, had his coat torn off the animal and stacked up the issues of the Wall Street Journal during the action . The straw laid out for the coyote was not accepted. The animal preferred to make itself comfortable on the newspapers, peeing on them now and then. All that remained for Beuys was the straw, the felt sheets, the shepherd's stick and a triangle, which he operated every now and then. The initially aggressive and frightened coyote gained increasing confidence during the action, so that a relationship between humans and animals was established. In parting, Beuys hugged the prairie wolf and scattered the straw on which the two had shared the bed around the room. The artist then had himself wrapped in felt again and was taken back to the airport in an ambulance without a single glance at America - with the exception of the Coyote, Wall Street Journal issues, and gallery space. Beuys later said that he did not want to see anything other than this coyote, because this animal, hated by whites, could also be viewed as an angel.
Movie
Excerpts from the action were recorded on 16mm film by Herbert Wietz ( "I like America and America likes Me". One week's performance on the occasion of the opening of the René Block Gallery , New York, May 1974, 16mm, b / w, 37 min., Production by Galerie René Block and Helmut Wietz - VHS , 1981). Beuys had the film, shot in color, copied in black and white, not only to give it a more sculptural shape, "but above all to emphasize the spiritual side of the action."
Exhibition on the action
From November 3 to December 28, 1979, the exhibition " From Berlin: News from the Coyote " followed in the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery in New York, as well as an open discussion in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union on January 7, 1979. The first retrospective of his work followed in 1979 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
reception
The unusual action with the coyote gave the artist the nimbus of the shamanic . The rather playful dialogue with the wild animal, the felt cape, the crook and the ritual behavior itself offered the media-effective image of a “holy man”. In 1978 the artist Lili Fischer added a photo to an article about "Shamans" that showed Joseph Beuys in his New York action. The older animal actions of Beuys, such as “ How to explain the pictures to the dead rabbit ” (1965) and “ Titus Andronicus / Iphigenie ” (1969), were sometimes seen as so-called shamanic actions by fans, interpreters and critics were given a meaning for "the mental areas that are susceptible to myths, magic, rites and shamanistic magic", as the Beuys interpreter Heiner Stachelhaus noted in 1988. The art historian Uwe M. Schneede , who saw the actions as the core of Beuys' work, emphasized the "nomadic habitus" in 2001 in I like America and America likes me , in which he recognized an image of the life and art principle of modernity: that of the Movement .
literature
- Götz Adriani, Winfried Konnertz and Karin Thomas: Joseph Beuys . Dumont, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7701-3321-8
- Monika Angerbauer-Rau: Beuys Compass: a lexicon on the conversations of Joseph Beuys . Dumont, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-7701-4378-7
- Joseph Beuys: Energy Plan for the Western Man, Writings by and Interviews with the Artist, Compiled by Carin Kuoni . Four Walls Eight Windows, New York 1990, ISBN 0-941423-44-1
- Caroline Tisdall: Joseph Beuys, Coyote . Schirmer / Mosel, Munich, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8296-0396-6
- Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation . Hatje, Ostfildern near Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-7757-0450-7
Web links
Items:
- Tamara Tolnai Joseph Beuys and his Aktion Coyote; I like America and America likes Me
- Essay by David Levi Strauss from his book Between Dog & Wolf. Essays on Art and Politics (Engl.) ( Memento of 5 October 2009 at the Internet Archive )
- New York Times newspaper report "Joseph Beuys at the Feldman Gallery" from October 31, 1986 (engl.)
Images, video and audio recordings:
Individual evidence
- ↑ Free translation from the original in Carin Kuoni, Energy Plan for the Western Man: Joseph Beuys in America, Four Walls Eight Windows, NYC, 1990, pp. 141–144: “Why do I work with animals to express invisible powers? - You can make these energies very clear if you enter another kingdom that people have forgotten, and where vast powers survive as big personalities. And when I try to speak with the spiritual existences of this totality of animals, the question arises of whether one could not speak with these higher existences too, with these deities and elemental spirits […] The spirit of the coyote is so mighty that human being cannot understand what it is, or what it can do for humankind in the future. [...] I believe I made contact with the psychological trauma point of the United States' energy constellation: the whole American trauma with the Indian, the Red Man. You could say that a reckoning has to be made with the coyote, and only then can this trauma be lifted. "
- ↑ See Adriani / Konnertz / Thomas: Joseph Beuys . Dumont, Cologne 1994, p. 141 ff.
- ↑ Eugen Blume: Joseph Beuys. I like America and America likes Me . In: Pamela Kort / Max Hollein (eds.): I like America. Wild West fictions . Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Prestel, Munich / Berlin / London / New York 2006, p. 359
- ↑ Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery Archive Link ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Lili Fischer: Shamans . In: Kunstforum International , Volume 25, 1/1978; P. 54 ff.
- ↑ Heiner Stachelhaus: Joseph Beuys . Claasen, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 94
- ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: The history of art in the 20th century. From the avant-garde to the present . Munich 2001, p. 240