Jimmie Durham’s World
A prominent American artist is dogged by questions about Indigenous identity as his touring retrospective opens at Saskatoon's Remai Modern.
Jimmie Durham, "Head," 2006
wood, papier-mâché, hair, seashell, turquoise and metal tray, 10” × 16” × 16” (Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples; image courtesy of kurimanzutto, Mexico City)
Is Jimmie Durham a white man making Indigenous art? That’s the looming question nagging his touring retrospective, At the Center of the World, on view at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon through August. The artist’s identity didn’t raise any eyebrows when his show opened in Los Angeles, but by the time it hit the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis last summer, a guest editorial signed by 10 Cherokee artists and academics had been published in Indian Country Today. They declaimed: “Jimmie Durham’s indigenous identity has always been a fabrication and remains one.” Online chatter mushroomed and a flood of articles and op-eds ensued. The Saskatchewan media picked up on the scandal, but the jury regarding Durham’s legitimacy is still out.
The Cherokee authors claim Durham is violating the 1990 American Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits the sale of arts and crafts under false pretenses. Despite a stellar history of activism throughout the 1970s, working for the American Indian Movement and the International Indian Treaty Council, Durham’s public claims regarding his identity have been ambiguous. In 1993, when Lucy Lippard published Jimmie Durham – Postmodernist “Savage” in Art in America, he wrote a letter to the editor and stated: “I am not Cherokee. I am not an American Indian. This is in concurrence with recent U.S. legislation, because I am not enrolled on any reservation or in any American Indian community.”
1 of 3
Jimmie Durham, "At the Center of the World," 2018
installation view, Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)
2 of 3
Jimmie Durham, "At the Center of the World," 2018
installation view, Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)
3 of 3
Jimmie Durham, "At the Center of the World," 2018
installation view, Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)
Seems cut and dried, but his statement is actually consistent with an ongoing ambivalence in his artistic practice and his lifelong challenge to fundamental assumptions we make regarding authenticity, originality, authorship and institutional authority. Reading between the lines, what he’s saying is: By the terms established by the American state, I don’t count as an Indian.
Of course, social sanction always comes into play regarding questions of any identity. It can never simply be a matter of self-declaration: passports must be stamped, health cards allotted, taxonomies shored up and entrances to inner sanctums agreed to. Nation states, colonial regimes and institutional authorities try to codify the business, but it’s always muddy.
Jimmie Durham, "At the Center of the World," 2018
installation view at Remai Modern, Saskatoon, showing "Untitled (It’s Got Mr. Durham’s Teeth)" at centre (photo by Blaine Campbell)
The piece I keep returning to is Untitled (It’s Got Mr. Durham’s Teeth). An inconspicuous thing, really, like most of his work. It’s not modern, industrial or graphic … it’s more like folk: a figure, about two feet high, hacked-together, mostly wooden, but with super-significant found materials – like his teeth!
But are they his teeth? Maybe, but that’s just what I want. I think this guy is playing me, and I’m the sucker – of games, of signs, of power.
In the end, what does At the Center of the World – and the controversy it tows in its wake – amount to? We have a terrific survey of work by a beguiling and challenging artist, and we get to witness the public art gallery, a bastion of taste and beauty, as it takes on its most important social role: a forum for public anxiety. Amen. ■
Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World is on view at the Remai Modern from March 25 to Aug. 12, 2018.
Jimmie Durham, "Self-Portrait Pretending to Be a Stone Statue of Myself," 2006
colour photograph, 32”× 24” (Collection of fluid archives, Karlsruhe, Germany; courtesy of ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe)
REMAI MODERN
102 Spadina Crescent E, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7K 0L3
please enable javascript to view
Wed to Sun 10 am - 5 pm, until 9 pm on Thurs and Fri
