A holistic tribute to Jimmie Durham's protean, multilayered practice
Artist, poet, performer and activist Jimmie Durham (1940-2021) dedicated his practice to the critical decoding of the images and symbols underpinning dominant cultural systems. His works, marked by a strong vein of humor, range from sculptures to videos, poems, performances, installations, paintings, drawings, collages, prints and essays. Edited by Kathryn Weir, this first major publication since his death in late 2021 features more than 10 newly commissioned essays as well as extensive documentary materials that have never been published. It also includes an unpublished poem written by Durham in 2020. The book's title, taken from a print by Durham, underlines his project to relativize as culturally specific the universalizing and teleological notions of the human characteristic of European modernity.