Joseph Beuys didn't want to see America. Not really. When he flew into JFK in May 1974, he had a very specific, almost obsessive plan to avoid touching American soil with his feet. He wanted to remain insulated. He was wrapped in felt, carried on a stretcher, and whisked away in an ambulance.
The goal? To spend three straight days locked in a room with a wild coyote.
This performance, I Like America and America Likes Me, remains one of the most polarizing and misunderstood moments in 20th-century art. It wasn't just a stunt for the Rene Block Gallery in New York. It was a ritual. Beuys was a man who believed art could heal a "sick" society, and to him, the United States was a place of deep trauma, particularly regarding its treatment of Indigenous people and the natural world.
He stayed in that room for three days. Just him, the coyote (named Little John), a shepherd's crook, a flashlight, and a pile of Wall Street Journal newspapers.
The Myth of the Felt and the Stretcher
You’ve probably heard the origin story Beuys told about himself. He claimed that during World War II, his plane crashed in the Crimea and Tartars saved his life by wrapping his body in fat and felt to keep him warm. Historians have largely debunked this as a personal myth—records suggest he was actually rescued by a German search commando—but for Beuys, the "truth" of the story mattered less than the symbolism.
Felt was his insulator.
When he arrived for I Like America and America Likes Me, the felt served as a physical and spiritual barrier. He wasn't there to be a tourist. He wasn't there to eat hot dogs or see the Empire State Building. By traveling from the airport to the gallery in an ambulance, he was treating his visit as a medical emergency. He was the "shaman" coming to treat a patient: the United States.
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It sounds pretentious. Honestly, maybe it was. But in the context of the 1970s—post-Vietnam, amidst the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee—Beuys was tapping into a very real, very raw cultural nerve.
Three Days with Little John
The performance wasn't a scripted play. It was an interaction between two predators. Beuys, the human predator, and the coyote, the animal predator that had been demonized by American settlers for centuries.
At first, things were tense.
The coyote would tear at the felt blankets Beuys wore. It would urinate on the Wall Street Journal. Beuys, for his part, would perform repetitive, ritualistic movements. He’d stand still, wrapped in felt like a monolith, leaning on his staff. Sometimes he’d let the flashlight peek out from the felt.
The choice of the Wall Street Journal was far from accidental. Beuys saw the newspaper as the ultimate symbol of American capitalism and materialism—the very thing he felt had alienated humans from nature. By letting the coyote defecate and urinate on the financial news, Beuys was making a pretty blunt statement about what he thought of the "American Dream."
Eventually, the energy changed.
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The aggression faded into a weird, silent coexistence. They began to share the space. Beuys would lie in the straw; the coyote would curl up nearby. By the end of the three days, Beuys actually hugged the animal. He had "tamed" the interaction, not through force, but through presence.
Why the Coyote Matters
In many Indigenous American cultures, particularly the Navajo and Hopi, the coyote is a trickster god. It represents transformation and survival.
Beuys knew this. He believed that the white European settler had "de-souled" the American landscape by trying to exterminate the coyote and the people who revered it. To Beuys, the coyote was the "point of trauma" for America. He figured that if you could reconcile with the coyote, you could start to heal the whole country.
Some critics, like Benjamin Buchloh, have been pretty harsh about Beuys’s methods. They argue that his "shamanism" was a bit of a self-indulgent fantasy that ignored the actual political realities of the time. They’re not entirely wrong. It’s a bit weird for a German man to show up and tell Americans how to fix their relationship with Indigenous history by sitting in a room with a dog.
But if you look at it through the lens of Social Sculpture—Beuys’s idea that everything is art and everyone is an artist—the performance makes more sense. He wanted to provoke a reaction. He wanted to create a "thought-form."
The Physical Toll of the Performance
Living in a room with a wild animal isn't exactly a spa day. The smell alone—urine, sweat, damp straw—would have been overwhelming. Beuys was in his 50s at the time. He wasn't a young kid looking for clout; he was a serious, somewhat fragile man putting his body on the line.
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There were no barriers. No glass walls. If Little John had decided to go for Beuys’s throat, that would have been the end of the performance.
The endurance aspect is what makes it "human-quality" art. It wasn't a digital projection or a polished painting. It was a man, a staff, and a nervous animal in a room in New York.
Beyond the Gallery Walls
When the three days were up, Beuys did exactly what he did upon arrival. He was wrapped back in his felt, placed on a stretcher, and driven back to JFK. He never once "stepped" on American soil during the entire trip.
He didn't want the "America" of 1974 to touch him. He only wanted to interact with the "primordial" America represented by the coyote.
This remains one of the most influential pieces of performance art because it asks a question we're still struggling with: How do we fix a broken relationship with the world around us? Beuys didn't offer a policy paper or a political speech. He offered a gesture.
Actionable Insights for Understanding Beuys
If you're trying to wrap your head around why this guy matters, or if you're an artist looking for inspiration, here’s the takeaway:
- Look for the "Point of Trauma": Beuys didn't just pick a random animal. He picked the one that represented a specific cultural wound. If you’re creating something, find the thing people are afraid to talk about.
- Materials Carry Meaning: To Beuys, felt wasn't just fabric; it was warmth and protection. Fat was energy. Think about what your materials actually say before you use them.
- The Power of Isolation: Sometimes, to see a problem clearly, you have to cut off all other distractions. By refusing to see the "sights" of New York, Beuys forced the world to look at the one room that mattered.
- Ritual Over Narrative: You don't always need a "story" with a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes, a repeated action (like clicking a flashlight or lying in straw) communicates more than a script ever could.
To truly understand I Like America and America Likes Me, stop looking at it as a museum piece. Think of it as a conversation that never quite finished. The "patient" (the U.S.) is still on the table, and the "shaman" (Beuys) has long since left the building, leaving us to figure out what to do with the mess left on the floor.
The best way to engage with Beuys today is to look at the "coyotes" in your own life—the things we’ve cast out or misunderstood—and find a way to sit in a room with them until the biting stops.