FROM THE ARCHIVES: 

JIMMIE DURHAM’S TOUGH, IRONICALLY FUNNY WORK

ArtNews

“Jimmie Durham at L.A. Louver”
By Suzanne Muchnic
December 1993

At [this] exhibition, called “Various Gates and Escape Routes,” visitors walked through Forbidden Things, a bogus metal detector similar to one Durham had seen in a bus station in Mexico, where he lives. The makeshift door frame detected nothing, and three signs above the door that ostensibly pointed out prohibited objects were purposefully unclear. The piece did its job setting up an ambience of ominous nonsense. It seems that Durham—a Cherokee artist, poet, performer, and activist whose work was included in the 1993 Whitney Biennial and the 1992 Documenta—likes nothing better than to inject tough subjects with a jolt of ironic humor.

For this installations, Durham built a pseudo–slot machine with an ax for a handle, attached rearview mirrors to the ends of a tree branch, stuck a wax-covered dog skull on a length of PVC pipe, and bolted a starched blue shirt to a wall. An artist whose strength is his refusal to separate art from life, Durham combined the flotsam of nature and culture. The result was an art of powerfully engaged estrangement.

Learn more about this exhibition in our gallery history, and go see the comprehensive exhibition Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World at the Hammer Museum now through May 7, 2016.