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Gemma Marmalade, Images directed and created by Stephen Watson
I love America and America hates me
Gemma Marmalade
Images directed and created by Stephen Watson
This short film and series of still images is a reimagining of German artist Joseph Beuys’ seminal 1974 performance piece, I like America and America likes me. Beuys made this work where he reluctantly arrived in America for the first time amidst his anxiety towards the political actions of the USA and their global influence. Beuys travelled via ambulance to the René Block Gallery in New York City. For three consecutive days he undertook a durational performance contained within a space with a live coyote before returning to the airport by ambulance and back to Europe.
Fifty years later, I love America and America hates me meditates on the same anxieties felt by Beuys, now contextualised in the twenty-first century by a female protagonist. In sharing a lexicon of visual and performative symbolism with Beuys, this work was made in Nevada on the 20th January 2025 – Donald J. Trump’s second inauguration as the 47th President of the United States of America. This visual testimony navigates an uncanny allegory of symptomatic estrangement from the current socio-political landscape.
