Stephen Aiken: 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 Stephen Aiken's (born 1948) photographs of this May 1974 "action" by Beuys--recently unearthed and previously unpublished--offer a fresh look at this seminal art happening.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.