Jimmie Durham
image: (c) Maria Thereza Alves
On Loan From the Museum of the American Indian, 1985
"I did a piece called On Loan from the Museum of the American Indian. Because we were a group of minority artists in New York City, fighting for... not recognition, not a place, but fighting exclusion and fighting the art agenda that was quite narrow of styles of art. And there is a Museum of the American Indian in New York City—that is what it is called. It’s such a funny title, as though there was one American Indian... The Museum of the African, they wouldn’t say that; The Museum of the Jew they wouldn’t say... They wouldn’t say it about someone else, this seems so funny to me.
If you say the American Indian, you mean all of us. So I took it to mean me, that I was the American Indian. I did a vitrine and I did put a photo of my parents–I called it The Indian’s Parents (Frontal View) —and another picture of my cousin, of my sister, The Indian’s Sister... But I didn’t mean it as autobiographical, I didn’t mean it talking about me, I did mean it talking about this funny museum up in Harlem down the custom’s house." [full text here]
