JOSEPH BEUYS: COYOTE, by Caroline Tisdall. A photographic artist book that documents Beuys' "visit" to America that involved living isolated in a room with a coyote. A seminal work of performance art.

Published by Schirmer-Mosel, Munich, Germany, 1980. Second edition. ISBN: 3921375576.

Hardcover Book in Dustjacket, 7x10 inches (17.5x26 cm) oblong, illustrated throughout. Text in English and German.

VERY GOOD book, the covers have a small bump at the upper front corner and light pushing to the spine ends, there is a small label of "Laura L. Carpenter" (aka Laura Carpenter Fine Art) on the upper corner of the front free endpaper and a related label to the bottom spine corner of the rear cover, otherwise just lightly read, and still bright, clean, clear and unmarked; in a GOOD MINUS dustjacket that has a 1 inch closed tear to the top edge of the front panel, two 1 inch closed tears to the top edge of the rear panel, some splitting to the ends of the front folds, and some fraying to the top of the spine; nonetheless a solid, bright dustjacket that is now in a Mylar dustjacket protector. A nice, presentable copy.

The book is a photographic documentation of Joseph Beuys' amazing "visit" to America, a Performance Art piece titled "I Love America and America Loves Me". It was documented by his friend and collaborator Caroline Tisdall. Some consider Beuys' performance "visit" to be one of the greatest works of Performance Art to this day. It led the way for German Avant-Garde Artists who followed, including Georg Baselitz, Kiefer, Lupertz, and others.

About the Performance (from Wikipedia):

******In May 1974, Beuys flew to New York and was taken by a windowless ambulance to the site of the performance, a room in the René Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway. Beuys lay on the ambulance stretcher swathed in felt. He shared this room with a coyote for three days. At times he stood, wrapped in a thick, grey blanket of felt, leaning on a large shepherd's staff. At times he lay on the straw, at times he watched the coyote as the coyote watched him and cautiously circled the man or shredded the blanket to pieces, and at times he engaged in symbolic gestures, such as striking a large triangle or tossing his leather gloves to the animal; the performance continuously shifted between elements that were required by the realities of the situation and elements that had a purely symbolic character. At the end of the three days, Beuys hugged the coyote that had grown quite tolerant of him and was taken to the airport. Again he rode in a veiled ambulance, leaving America without having set foot on its ground. As Beuys later explained: "I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote."******

An interesting side-note about Laura L. Carpenter/Laura Carpenter Fine Art, the previous owner of this book. Laura Carpenter was a fine arts gallery owner in Santa Fe who became very close friends with a wealthy woman. The wealthy woman poured over $1.5 into Laura's gallery. Things didn't go so well with the Gallery or the friendship. Bankruptcy and lawsuits followed. The curious can search Laura Carpenter Fine Art to read the ugly details. Fortunately this book probably sat unsold on the Gallery shelves and survived unscathed.

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