Beuys- new performance

"I like America and America Likes Me" - Poznan, NYC, Nove Zamky, Berlin

(the German artist Joseph Beuys used the same title for his performance in 1974, at the René Block Galley, NYC.)

Description of the Beuys performance: "Coyote: I like America and America Likes Me"

Subject: attempt to communicate and co-habitat with a wild animal; art as transformational action; chose coyote, because it is indigenous to North America and because it served as a metaphor for the Native American Indian population, who had been displaced from their homeland because they did not assimilate to a European - based culture; performed only after the U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam in 1974; statement about cooperation and learning from each other; art as redemptiveaction.

Context: postwar Europe, still dealing with traumas of Germany during the war; this piece also directly addresses the U.S. policy towards the Native American Indian, which Beuys sees as paralleling the conquest of Vietnam; belief that art must go beyond the studio to engage the world and life; belief, also, that such actions are transformative and redemptive, like the shaman, who takes on the collective wounds of the tribe, experiencing a kind of spiritual death and rebirth as part of a collective healing.

Action: 3 days performance starting from the moment his plane touched down in NYC. Met at the airport and carried by ambulance to the NYC gallery, where he joined the coyote armed only with a shepherd's crook and felt blanket. The space contained water and food, a stack of hay for a bed, and 50 copies of the Wall Street Journal changed daily. The coyote would pee on the newspapers and huddle in the corner with the artist whenever frightened.

Chashama, 135 West 42nd Street, New York, USA


InnerSpaces, Poznan, Poland 

Context 1: to our performance: "NYC: I like America and America Likes Me"

Joseph Beuys (1921) was a nazi pilot in Luftwaffe, Adolf Hitler's air forces, in 1941 - 1945. He very much believed in fascism ideology. In 1942 Beuys was staying as a soldier at the military airport in Krzesiny near Poznan (Poland). My father (1922) was working there at that time as a nazi slave. He was repairing damaged airplanes. Joseph Beuys used them for killing thousand people in Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. He is a famous artist now. He liked America as a guilty nation after Vietnam war and America liked him as a guilty nazi pilot who offered art as redemptive action.

Context 2: to our performance: "NYC: I like America and America Likes Me"

We came to America in 2002, one year after September 11 and one year before, when the Polish people could join to the United Europe, and could come into normality since the time, when the nazi troops attacked Poland (1939) starting with the World War II. Since that time, when Hitler destroyed our world, and the Yalta agreement divided Europe for 57 years, displaced nations from our homelands and gave a permission of extending of the totalitarian system onto East and Central Europe.

Context 3: to our performance: "NYC: I like America and America Likes Me"

The huge gap between ART, LIFE, HUMAN VALUES and written HISTORY of art.

Action: "NYC: I like America and America Likes Me"

We came to NYC by British Airways on September 30th. From the JFK airport we come by the Super Shuttle service car to the door of our friend, Leopold Duszka Kolcz, who had to emigrate from Poland 20 years ago. In meantime we did some slides of New York City for you. We came to the Chashama in very common style by subway. We don't want to be an extraordinary heroes. We used in our performance simply story about the nazi pilot, well known in history of art, and also we used some pictures, American Hymn and flag, some small things and two toys (dogs) as the metaphor of warm feelings and as a hope for the future without military aggression and the actions of redemption from the people side (maybe).

Technical equipment:
2 slides projectors
CD player
Microphone + sound system

Duration: 40 minutes

http://www.kazmierczak.artist.pl/perfor.htm