I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974

This was Beuys’ most famous work of art. It took place in May, 1974, when he spent 3 days in the same room as a coyote (a wolf like wild dog native to North America). After going to New York, he was wrapped in many layers of felt, and loaded into an ambulance that took him to the gallery where he worked on this.The title of this artwork is ironic. Beuys opposed American military actions in Vietnam. His work was a challenge to the social group of American Art.

‘I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.’

• Beuys’s felt blankets, walking stick and gloves became sculptural props through the Action• In addition, fifty new copies of the

Wall Street Journal were introduced each day, which the coyote acknowledged by urinating on them.• Beuys regularly performed the

same series of actions with his eyes continuously fixed on the coyote. • The coyote’s behavior shifted

throughout the three days, becoming cautious, detached, aggressive and sometimes friendly.

Beuys saw the value of the coyote as a symbol of the damage done by white men to the American continent and its native cultures. His action was an attempt to heal some of those wounds

‘You could say that a reckoning has to be made with the coyote, and only then can this trauma be lifted’

700 Oaks

In 1982, Joseph Beuys inaugurated a monumental sculptural work in Kassel for Documenta 7, the international art fair that was held in the city. It consisted in the sowing of 7000 oak trees paired with four foot high basalt columns. It was Beuys’ first work in an ongoing project, and is now continued in several other places. His main aim was to raise ecological awareness. He linked art with the natural environment and social engagement.

The symbolic value of the oak, with its slow and solid growth, paired with the static and massive form of the basalt stones, reflect the ideas of completeness, the passing of time and landscape modification.

Beuys’ desire to sow into the future a change in people’s and communities’ attitudes towards nature and their environment is mirrored in the constantly changing relationship between the tree and the stone. As time passes and the tree grows, the proportional relationship between the two evolves, the tree gaining in strength and height as people’s consciousness and engagement should.

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