Ensemble: Against Architecture, Against Belief
“Architecture makes you believe that it is the city when in fact our intellectuality and our desire for freedom is the city. Architecture says no, you’re not the city, the state’s project is the city. The state owns the city and you can build in that architectural space. And what I want—as a deliberate foreigner—I want to challenge that, to say no, we are the city, the architecture is something that we just have to move around—no matter how good or how old it is.” [full text here]
"I quickly grasped how religious much architecture in Europe is, steeped in monumentalism and belief. European art seemed like a servant to architecture in a system designed for enforcing religious belief." [full text here]
Media
>Tower, 2009
>Jimmie Durham talks about architecture and anti-architecture [video]
Themes & Categories
>Arc de Triomphe.
Works
>Jimmie Durham, Corbel, 1994.Sculpture, painted wood, papier-mâché, polyester, 33 x 39 x 22 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Garçon, Garou, Gargouille, 1994.Sculpture, papier maché, pvc pipe, leather, 150 x 400 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Paradigm for an Arch, 1994.Sculpture, pvc pipe, wood, papier maché, horn, paper, polystyrene, cloth, 308 x 215 x 20 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Un example, 1994.Sculpture, wood, stone, papier maché, glass, coal expoxy, 46 x 65 x 11 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Barrière rouge, en perspective, 1996.Installation, wood, string, variable dimensions.
>Jimmie Durham, Shrouds and Swaddling Clothes of Decomissioned Saints, 1996.Installation, plastic, clothes, dirt, hair, glue, 2 x (28 x 45 x 45 cm).
>Jimmie Durham, Suggested Proposal for a New Architecture n°3, 2004.Sculpture, wood, stone, paper, 88 x 27 x 10 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Suggested Proposal for a New Architecture n°1, 2004.Sculpture, stone, wood, 70 x 8 x 8 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, Suggested Proposal for a New Architecture n°2, 2004.Sculpture, stone, wood, 60 x 37 x 15 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, A Stone Rejected by the Builder (2), 2006.Sculpture, stone, wood, acrylic paint, 26 x 48 x 20 cm, 75 x 59 x 28 cm.
>Jimmie Durham, A Stone Rejected by the Builder (1), 2006.Sculpture, stone, wood, acrylic paint, 34 x 41 x 20 cm (stone), 55 x 48 x 35 cm (table).
>Jimmie Durham, Tower, 2009.Sculpture, wood, glass, 210 x 90 x 90 cm.