Jimmie Durham

(c)image: Rosino/Wikimedia Commons
Rabbit, 1990
Sculpture , 51 x 66 x 120 cm
Skull, shells, wood, paint, text

On a strange green totem-like structure - a rabbit, says the title -, made of machine parts and an animal skull decorated with beads and shells, hangs a piece of text. Handwritten, almost child-like, glued onto a piece of wood; a scientific text about light particles. The unexpected combination creates a contradiction between an object with an intentional “primitive” touch, answering to expectations of what exotic and non-civilized looks like, and the erudition of a scientific discourse which in its turn struggles to impose any authority.