The piece is a re-configuration of Joseph Beuys' 1974 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 and 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, take immigrants across borders, etc). Where Beuys lived with a coyote for a week, Okón casts a human "coyote" to play the canine role. Okón stands in for Beuys, and replaces the felt, the shamanic staff and the Wall Street Journal with a synthetic comforter, a police baton and TV Guides.

Video Installation.

Flat screen and relics from the performance (police baton, tv-guides, dog food dish, suit, construction gloves, costume jewelry, syntetic blanket, shoes, trumpet and straw).

Sound.

Duration: 16:15 minutes, loop.

Dimensions: variable.

 

Performance.

Police baton, tv-guides, dog food dish, suit, construction gloves, costume jewelry, syntetic blanket, shoes, trumpet and straw.

 

Photograph.

Series of 3 photographs.

Lightjet c-prints.

Dimensions: 30 x 40 inches, each.

Articles & Interviews about Coyotería.

 

Mercier, Clémentine, Regards porteurs au Quai-Branly, Libération, France, July, 2020. [PDF]

Barthe Christine, Okon Yoshua, Passages Dans le Temps, interview published in the catalogue of the exhibition ''Who is gazing?'' at Museé du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, June, 2020. [PDF]

Perrella, Cristiana, neo-con. Contemporary Returns to Conceptual Art (brochure). Apexart, New York, September, 2006. [PDF]

Picard, Charmaine. Art Basel Miami 2003. Art Nexus No. 52 Vol. 3. 2004. [PDF]