Ritual

This is a photograph from one of Joseph Beuys' most famous art projects.  Beuys is a German artist who came to America in order to spend three days in a room with a coyote.  He was covered in felt the entire time because he claimed that he wanted to see nothing of America other than the coyote.  He named the act "I Like America and America Likes Me" which was meant to be an ironic title because Beuys was actually infuriated with America for being at war in Vietnam.  An act like this can be seen as either artistically brilliant or insane and it is interesting to see how close the two categories come to one another.  I think that Beuys is certainly artistically brilliant and brave to make such a radical statement, but it also seems that he could have thought of a way to make his intent clearer.  It is thought that the coyote represents the significance it once held by the Native Americans, but it doesn't seem evident that Beuys did very much to convey this.  While these photographs are interesting to look at, I do not believe I would understand what the meaning behind them without having read a description first.