Jimmie Durham the New York Times November 2Nd, 2017 by Holland Cotter

Jimmie Durham The New York Times November 2nd, 2017 by Holland Cotter

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“Malinche,” by Jimmie Durham, at the Whitney Museum, for his show, “At the Center of the World.” The sculpture’s “Mtitlealinche refers,” byto theJimmie Spanish Durham, conquis at thetador Whitney Hernán Museum, Cortés’s slavefor his, trshowansla, tor“At andthe Centermistress. of the World.” The sculpture’s titleVINCENT refers TULL toO the FOR SpanishTHE NEW YconquisORK TIMEtadorS Hernán Cortés’s slave, translator and mistress. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES ComingComing FFacacee ttoo FFaceace WWithith JimmieJimmie DurhamDurham The sculptor’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum is a “brilliant, half-century-long act of The sculptor’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum is a “brilliant, half-century-long act of politically driven self-invention,” our critic writes. politically driven self-invention,” our critic writes. By HOLLAND COTTER NOVEMBER 2, 2017 By HOLLAND COTTER NOVEMBER 2, 2017

“I feel fairly sure that I could address the entire world if only I had a place to “I feel fairly sure that I could address the entire world if only I had a place to stand,” the peripatetic American artist Jimmie Durham said in the 1980s. Now he stand,” the peripatetic American artist Jimmie Durham said in the 1980s. Now he has that place: the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, where his has that place: the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, where his magnetic traveling retrospective has arrived with a comet trail of controversy. magnetic traveling retrospective has arrived with a comet trail of controversy. The controversy, like many attached to art are these days, is about identity and The controversy, like many attached to art are these days, is about identity and ownership: who has the right to do and say what. Mr. Durham, 77, is widely ownership: who has the right to do and say what. Mr. Durham, 77, is widely perceived as a Native American artist, maybe the Native American artist. He has perceived as a Native American artist, maybe the Native American artist. He has often spoken of himself as Cherokee; his work has made frequent references to often spoken of himself as Cherokee; his work has made frequent references to indigenous culture. indigenous culture. But when the retrospective, “Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World,” moved But when the retrospective, “Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World,” moved from its originating institution, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, to the from its originating institution, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, several historians raised objections to his ethnic Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, several historians raised objections to his ethnic claims, asserting that there’s no evidence that he is Indian at all. claims, asserting that there’s no evidence that he is Indian at all. Accusations that he misrepresents himself have been voiced in the past, but were Accusations that he misrepresents himself have been voiced in the past, but were now amplified by social media. This gave a sense that the show of some 120 works now amplified by social media. This gave a sense that the show of some 120 works was ethically tainted and would, at best, limp into New York. Now that it’s here, was ethically tainted and would, at best, limp into New York. Now that it’s here, what do we get? A review of the recent dissension on the museum’s website, and what do we get? A review of the recent dissension on the museum’s website, and the exhilarating sight in the galleries of his singular, cantankerous, container- the exhilarating sight in the galleries of his singular, cantankerous, container- resistant career. resistant career. True, some fact-checking has happened en route. Where the Hammer catalog True, some fact-checking has happened en route. Where the Hammer catalog followed Mr. Durham’s lead in giving his 1940 birthplace as Washington, Ark., the followed Mr. Durham’s lead in giving his 1940 birthplace as Washington, Ark., the Whitney has changed it to Houston, Tex. And if the status of Mr. Durham’s Native Whitney has changed it to Houston, Tex. And if the status of Mr. Durham’s Native American DNA is left inconclusive, that is clearly the heritage with which he self- American DNA is left inconclusive, that is clearly the heritage with which he self- identified from an early point. identified from an early point. “Malinche,” by Jimmie Durham, at the Whitney Museum, for his show, “At the Center of the World.” The sculpture’s title refers to the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés’s slave, translator and mistress. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Coming Face to Face With Jimmie Durham

The sculptor’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum is a “brilliant, half-century-long act of politically driven self-invention,” our critic writes.

By HOLLAND COTTER NOVEMBER 2, 2017

“I feel fairly sure that I could address the entire world if only I had a place to stand,” the peripatetic American artist Jimmie Durham said in the 1980s. Now he has that place: the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, where his magnetic traveling retrospective has arrived with a comet trail of controversy.

The controversy, like many attached to art are these days, is about identity and ownership: who has the right to do and say what. Mr. Durham, 77, is widely perceived as a Native American artist, maybe the Native American artist. He has often spoken of himself as Cherokee; his work has made frequent references to indigenous culture.

But when the retrospective, “Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World,” moved from its originating institution, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, several historians raised objections to his ethnic claims, asserting that there’s no evidence that he is Indian at all.

Accusations that he misrepresents himself have been voiced in the past, but were now amplified by social media. This gave a sense that the show of some 120 works was ethically tainted and would, at best, limp into New York. Now that it’s here, what do we get? A review of the recent dissension on the museum’s website, and the exhilarating sight in the galleries of his singular, cantankerous, container- resistant career.

True, some fact-checking has happened en route. Where the Hammer catalog followed Mr. Durham’s lead in giving his 1940 birthplace as Washington, Ark., the Whitney has changed it to Houston, Tex. And if the status of Mr. Durham’s Native American DNA is left inconclusive, that is clearly the heritage with which he self- identified from an early point.

Jimmie Durham in his video “Smashing” (2004), from the show at the Whitney Museum.

Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

This was, presumably, what prompted him to join the American Indian Movement as a full-time organizer in 1973, inspired by the group’s 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, with members of the Oglala Lakota tribe. A year later, he became executive director of its International Indian Treaty Council, which campaigned for United Nations recognition of Native sovereignty. He left the job after five years, partly because of disagreements with the movement, but also to turn his energies to making art. Jimmie Durham in his video “Smashing” (2004), from the show at the Whitney Museum.

Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Clockwise from top left: “Cortez,” “Choose Any Three,” “Self-portrait,” “Jesus (Es geht um die Wurst),” “New Clear Family” and “Wahya.” Mr. Durham assembled works from New York street ﬁnds to which he added “Indian” touches: beading, seashell inlay and feathers. PHOTOGRAPHS BY VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Or, rather, back to making art. In the 1960s, he had been active as a poet and performer and gone to art school in Europe. By the early 1980s, he was living in New York City with his partner, the Brazilian artist and activist Maria Thereza Alves, and exhibiting in alternative spaces as multiculturalism was coalescing as a trend. Mr. Durham’s “Malinche” is made from guava, pine branches, snakeskin and a bra soaked in resin and painted gold. Malinche, Cortés’s translator and mistress, has often been derided as a colonial sellout, but this is a tender depiction. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ADVERTISEMENT Some of his sculptures from the era are in the Whitney show, and fascinating for the degree to which they are both Native American and not. Most are assembled from New York street finds — car parts, old clothes, animal carcasses, police barricades, wood from construction sites — to which Mr. Durham added “Indian” touches: beading, seashell inlay and feathers. A car muffler ornamented with beads and stars cut from an American flag could be a ritual object or a weapon. A stuffed moose head, pulled from a Dumpster, becomes — with its skin painted blue with yellow dots, like a night sky — the centerpiece for a scaffold-like altar.

“The Free and the Brave,” on a terrace at the Whitney, was commissioned for the New York iteration of the show. It combines photographs of “Indian country” in the American Southwest with a self-portrait of Mr. Durham. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In this sculpture’s rambling, paragraph-long title, the artist explains that he found the head near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which (he writes) calls itself the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, but isn’t. It’s a modern American fantasy of such a cathedral, and, architecturally, a fake. Ethnically speaking, the moose-head altar is a fake too. Or is it? By accepting fake as a new and different real, which is something that art does all the time, Mr. Durham gives his sculpture — and the cathedral — its own weird and authentic power.

In “St. Frigo,” the dents are the result of Mr. Durham stoning the refrigerator. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nor does he ever propose that Native American identity, at least his, is ever anything more than an artful construction. The point is instantly, and hilariously, made in his 1986 “Self-portrait.” Hanging from the wall, it’s a full-length nude figure cut from canvas (Ms. Alves traced the outline from Mr. Durham’s body), and fitted with a braid of synthetic hair, a mask-like face, wood-carved genitals, and a chicken-feather heart.

“Bedia’s Mufﬂer,” left, and “Bedia’s Stirring Wheel.” These 1985 assemblages by Mr. Durham combine ﬂag scraps with car parts. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Handwritten words mark the figure’s brick-pink skin like tattoos. Some are first- person confidences (“Hello! I’m Jimmie Durham. As an artist I’m confused about many things”; “I have 12 hobbies! 11 houseplants!”). Others are like a clinician’s notes. (“Mr. Durham has stated that he believes he has an addiction to alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine”; “Indian penises are unusually large and colorful.”) The piece is one of the great sculptural selfies of the late 20th century. It’s both a record and an invention, a compound of false history and genuine cultural cliché. When Mr. Durham does dramatize specific indigenous history, the results can be Whenstirring. Mr. In Durham a life-size does image dramatize of Hernán specific Cortés, indigenous the 16th-century history, theinvader results of Mexicocan be stirring.becomes In a mechanizeda life-size image pale-faced of Hernán monster, Cortés, a juggernaut the 16th-century of pipes invader and pulleys. of Mexico No becomesreal surprise. a mechanized But a corresponding pale-faced monster,figure of thea juggernaut native woman of pipes named and Malinche,pulleys. No realCortés’s surprise. slave, But interpreter a corresponding and mistress, figure has of thea very native different woman presence. named Malinche,She is often Cortés’sderided inslave, Mexico interpreter as a traitor and tomistress, her people, has a verycolonial different sellout. presence. But Mr. She Durham is often derideddepicts herin Mexico — skeletal as a limbs, traitor tiny to her whittled people, hands, a colonial disconsolate sellout. Butstare Mr. — withDurham a depictstenderness her that’s— skeletal almost limbs, disconcerting tiny whittled in the hands, context disconsolate of an exhibition stare — otherwise with a tendernesslaced with needling, that’s almost jibing disconcerting bitterness. in the context of an exhibition otherwise laced with needling, jibing bitterness. A source of this bitterness is the artist’s unsleeping awareness of colonialism’s Apersistence source of this— anti-native, bitterness anti-nature,is the artist’s anti-difference unsleeping awareness — as a condition of colonialism’s of persistenceAmerican life. — anti-native,In 1994, in theanti-nature, spirit of protest, anti-difference he and Ms. — as Alves a condition relocated of to AmericanEurope, where life. In they 1994, now in divide the spirit their of time protest, between he and Berlin Ms. andAlves Naples, relocated Italy. to Mr. Europe,Durham wherehasn’t theyset foot now in divide his homeland their time in between over 20 Berlinyears. “Iand am Naples, not a ‘Native Italy. Mr. DurhamAmerican,’ hasn’t nor doset Ifoot feel in that his ‘America’ homeland has in anyover right 20 years. to either “I am name not aor ‘Native un-name American,’me,” he said nor in ado 1996 I feel interview. that ‘America’ has any right to either name or un-name me,” he said in a 1996 interview. Overt signs of American Indian culture have receded in his art over time. The more Overtrecent signs work of in American the retrospective Indian culture— organized have recededby Anne in Ellegood, his art over senior time. curator The more of recentthe Hammer work in Museum, the retrospective and installed — organized by Elisabeth by Anne Sussman Ellegood, and Laurasenior Phipps curator at of the theWhitney Hammer — includes Museum, homages and installed to nonnative by Elisabeth artists Sussmanwho have and influenced Laura Phipps him, among at the Whitneythem Alexander — includes Calder homages and David to nonnative Hammons. artists who have influenced him, among them Alexander Calder and David Hammons. A brand-new billboard-size piece, “The Free and the Brave,” installed on a Whitney Aterrace, brand-new combines billboard-size photographs piece, of “Indian“The Free country” and the in Brave,” the American installed Southwest on a Whitney terrace,with a self-portrait combines photographs of Mr. Durham of “Indian playing country” what looks in thelike American a Gypsy version Southwest of withMarcel a self-portrait Duchamp’s ofdrag Mr. alter Durham ego Rrose playing Sélavy, what but looks that like might a Gypsy also versionrefer (I’m of just Marcelguessing Duchamp’s here) to the drag famous alter 1890ego Rrose photograph Sélavy, ofbut the that Lakota might Sioux also chiefrefer Spotted(I’m just guessingElk, or Bigfoot, here) to who the was famous found 1890 frozen photograph to death, ofa scarfthe Lakota over his Sioux head, chief after Spotted the Elk,Wounded or Bigfoot, Knee whomassacre. was found frozen to death, a scarf over his head, after the

Wounded Knee massacre. ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT The address of Mr. Durham’s work has always been both global and local, as it is in Thea short address 2003 of film Mr. called Durham’s “Pursuit work of hasHappiness,” always been which both places global a comedyand local, version as it is of in ahis short career 2003 in thefilm context called “Pursuitof the international of Happiness,” art world. which Theplaces film’s a comedy protagonist, version of hisnamed career Joe in Hill the (and context played of the by internationala real artist, Anri art world. Sala), Thelives film’s alone protagonist, in a trailer on emptynamed scrub-grassland. Joe Hill (and played He scours by a real the artist, terrain Anri for Salaorganic), lives castoffs alone — in rotten a trailer fruit, on roadempty kill scrub-grassland. — and makes collages. He scours A gallery the terrain spots for him, organic gives castoffshim, this — unsmiling rotten fruit, outsider,road kill — a show.and makes The art collages. crowd Aturns gallery out. spots The show’shim, gives a hit! him, The this dealer unsmiling (played by Mariooutsider, Pieroni) a show. hands The arthim crowd wads turnsof cash. out. Now The the show’s new Chosena hit! The One, dealer Joe (playedHill torches by hisMario trailer Pieroni) and heads hands for him the wads Big Timeof cash. (Paris, Now in the the new film). Chosen The narrativeOne, Joe Hillis torches simplistic,his trailer and but headsaccurate. for the Big Time (Paris, in the film). The narrative is simplistic, but accurate. The art world — or that part of it represented by the nexus of museums, art fairs, auctionThe art worldhouses, — collectorsor that part and of promotersit represented that by comprise the nexus the of market museums, — periodically art fairs, makesauction exactly houses, such collectors one-off and choices promoters when itthat comes comprise to artists the perceivedmarket — asperiodically ethically ormakes socially exactly marginal. such one-off We have choices lots of when white it malecomes superstars to artists theseperceived days, as but ethically only one or socially marginal. We have lots of white male superstars these days, but only one Chinese (Ai Weiwei) and one black African (El Anatsui). Mr. Durham has been assigned the Native American slot. Once such decisions are made, the diversity quota filled, the door shuts. Race-based tokenism justifiably sparks resentment. And I suspect that this resentment has done much to fuel the calling out of Mr. Durham’s ethnic bona fides. But to focus on shaming an artist for what is, on the evidence of this show, a truly brilliant, half-century-long act of politically driven self-invention, strikes me as self-defeating. Far better to direct that anger at the institutions that make the decisions about what art is bought and shown. The Whitney is one, and we should demand that the place where Mr. Durham now stands should be taken by Native American artists, one after another, when he moves on.

Correction: November 2, 2017 An earlier version of this article misidentified the actor who played an art dealer in “Pursuit of Happiness.” He is Mario Pieroni, not Jimmie Durham.

Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World Through Jan. 28 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Manhattan; 212-570-3600, whitney.org.

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