Yoshua Okon : Works : "Coyoteria"

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YOSHUA OKON Coyoteria, 2003

Coyoteria is a performance and one-channel video installation re-configuration of Joseph Beuys' 1974 piece I Like America and America Likes Me. As Beuys used the coyote to symbolize pre-Colonial spirituality on the American Continent, the term "coyote" was originally used by the Aztecs to refer to colonial, wealth-hungry Europeans later evolved to refer to a man who is hired to "get things done" at a price (i.e. facilitate official paperwork and bureaucratic procedures as well as to take immigrants across the US-Mexico border). Where Beuys lived with a coyote for a week in the Rene Block Gallery in New York, Okón cast a human "coyote" to play the canine role. Okón stood in for Beuys, and replaced the felt, the shamanic staff and the Wall Street Journal with a synthetic comforter, a police baton and TV Guides.

installation view
video

*YOSHUA OKON Coyoteria, 2003*
Coyoteria is a performance and one-channel video installation re-configuration of Joseph Beuys' 1974 piece I Like America and America Likes Me. As Beuys used the coyote to symbolize pre-Colonial spirituality on the American Continent, the term "coyote" was originally used by the Aztecs to refer to colonial, wealth-hungry Europeans later evolved to refer to a man who is hired to "get things done" at a price (i.e. facilitate official paperwork and bureaucratic procedures as well as to take immigrants across the US-Mexico border). Where Beuys lived with a coyote for a week in the Rene Block Gallery in New York, Okón cast a human "coyote" to play the canine role. Okón stood in for Beuys, and replaced the felt, the shamanic staff and the Wall Street Journal with a synthetic comforter, a police baton and TV Guides.
installation view	video