Jimmie Durham
(c)image: Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris / Thierry Langro
“And yet many objects really are beautiful, aren’t they? Is there anyone who does not love oak barrels, with their beautiful shape, texture, and technology? I love metal oil barrels in the same way. (...) When these oil drums are new, they have marvelous words on them, like “Shell” or “Total”; when I was a boy, I remember there was the Humble Oil Company, whose barrels bore the legend “Humble.” For decades, I have used oil barrels, usually the ones that proclaim “Total,” which are bright orange. For the show in Paris, I am making a new piece titled after the petroleum-industry classification Sweet/Light Crude. It is 25 oil barrels stacked three barrels high, each one painted a different pastel color and with a different word: TRUE, PURE, GOOD, BRAVE, and so on.” [full text here]
