An Artist, a Coyote, and a Cage

New documentation of Joseph Beuys’ controversial performance piece.

May 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Joseph Beuys’ infamous piece of performance art staged in New York City: I Like America and America Likes Me. The premise―a man and a wild coyote locked together inside a room―helped build a cult following for Beuys that has made him alternately revered and reviled throughout the contemporary art world. Stephen Aiken’s (born 1948) photographs of this May 1974 "action" by Beuys―recently unearthed and previously unpublished―offer a fresh look at this seminal art happening.

These striking images are supplemented with a set of previously unseen color photos taken by Aiken of Beuys at Greenwich Village’s New School in January 1974: verbally sparring onstage with fellow artist Hannah Wilke and jousting with a raucous audience that threatened to turn his lecture into a brawl.