Jimmie Durham
Head, 2006
Sculpture
, 25 x 45 x 45 cm
wood, paper, hair, turquoise, metal tray, shell
In 2006, the group exhibition Heads opened in London. According to Sprovieri Gallery’s press release, “much of the work in the exhibition has taken the purposelessness of making a portrait today as its point of departure. In dispensing with the history of the subject, the head assumes a peculiar versatility.” Jimmie Durham’s Head on a plate made for the same exhibition takes us closer to a more specific iconography: that of the head of St John the Baptist, regularly depicted with two heads, one attached to his body and another upon a plate either in his hands or at his feet.
