Art Basel OVR: Pioneers Duo Presentation Jimmie Durham & Tomas Schmit

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March 24 – 27, 2021

Preview day March 24, 2pm CET to March 25, 2pm CET Public days through March 27, 12 midnight CET

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Barbara Wien gallery & art bookshop Schöneberger Ufer 65, 3rd floor 10785 ,

phone +49 30 283853-52 fax -50 mobile +49 173 6156996 [email protected] www.barbarawien.de Jimmie Durham Resurrection 1995 TV, stone, glass, wire Fernseher, Stein, Glas, Draht 46 x 66 x 42 cm Edition 9 (of 21 unique pieces, signed and numbered each / von 21 je signierten und nummerierten Unikaten) Jimmie Durham Resurrection 1995 Edition 9 (of 21 unique pieces, signed and numbered each / von 21 je signierten und nummerierten Unikaten) Detail Jimmie Durham Resurrection 1995 TV, stone, glass, wire Fernseher, Stein, Glas, Draht 45 x 66 x 45 cm Edition 14 (of 21 unique pieces, signed and numbered each / von 21 je signierten und nummerierten Unikaten) Jimmie Durham Resurrection 1995 Edition 14 (of 21 unique pieces, signed and numbered each / von 21 je signierten und nummerierten Unikaten) Detail Jimmie Durham Installation abc art berlin contemporary, Berlin, 2008 In the Air, long before Archeology 2008 Scaffold, wood, bone, plastic elements, chinaware, doll Gerüst, Holz, Knochen, Plastik, Porzellan, Puppe 230 x 400 x 80 cm Jimmie Durham In the Air, long before Archeology 2008 Jimmie Durham In the Air, long before Archeology 2008 Detail Jimmie Durham In the Air, long before Archeology 2008 Detail Jimmie Durham In the Air, long before Archeology 2008 Detail Jimmie Durham Songs of My Childhood Part One: Songs to Get Rid Of Part Two: Songs to Keep 2014 Two-channel video installation 2 Pal-DVDs, each 11 min. 51 sec., colour, sound Zwei-Kanal Videoinstallation 2 Pal-DVDs, je 11 Min. 51 Sek., Farbe, Ton Edition 12 + V a.p. Jimmie Durham Songs of My Childhood Part One: Songs to Get Rid Of Part Two: Songs to Keep 2014 Jimmie Durham Songs of My Childhood Part One: Songs to Get Rid Of Part Two: Songs to Keep 2014

Watch excerpts here Jimmie Durham Songs of My Childhood

Jimmie Durham’s Songs of My Childhood is a two-channel video installation. On the left screen with Part One: Songs to Get Rid Of, Durham sings military, Christian, sexist, brutal and silly songs he has learned in his childhood. He remembers sometimes only a few lines of those songs which he wants to forget, but can’t get rid of them: “What can wash away my sins … O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow”, “I don’t want her, you can have her she’s too fat for me”, “Throw Mama from the train …” and so forth. On the right screen with Part Two: Songs to Keep, Durham sings the songs he is fond of – love songs and beautiful folksongs, playing the harmonica underlines the melancholic atmosphere of his vocal performance. Part Two: Songs to Keep ends with the lines “Today has been a lonesome day ... and tomorrow will be the same old way”.

Songs of My Childhood is an important piece within Durham’s video work. Realized in the 1990s by Durham and Maria Teresa Alves, his early films contain action pieces and performances with stones. They were presented as a whole at Barbara Wien gallery in Berlin in 2000. In 2002, the cinema film The Pursuit of Happiness (with Anri Sala as the main actor) followed. In 2004, Durham produced his famous video Smashing: he smashes objects given to him by his students, sitting at a desk and signing a certificate after each act of destruction. In his retrospective at the M HKA in in 2012, Durham’s films had a main part, emphasizing the key role that this medium plays in Durham’s work.

Jimmie Durham Songs of My Childhood Part One: Songs to Get Rid Of Part Two: Songs to Keep 2014 Film stills Tomas Schmit zyklus für wassereimer (oder flaschen) / zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) 1962 Tomas Schmit zyklus für wassereimer (oder flaschen) / zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) 1962 Performance Internationaal Programma Nieuwste Muziek, Nieuwste Theater, Nieuwste Literatuur (-concert), de kleine komedie, Amsterdam, 18.12.1963 Photos: Dorine van der Klei Tomas Schmit zyklus for water-pails (or bottles)

The performance zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) by Tomas Schmit is an iconic piece of Fluxus. It is the initial piece which Schmit included in his catalogue raisonné as the first ork.w Schmit’s original type- and handwritten instructions for zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) are part of his collected scores. The piece will be re-performed in a survey exhibition dedicated to Schmit’s Fluxus works at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, opening September 2021; and for the exhibition and (1963–1974) at the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, scheduled for 2022/2023.

“Carefully groomed and dressed in a business suit, Tomas Schmit stationed himself in a circle of bottles, all empty save one that he had filled with water before beginning the event. Selecting a random position in the circle, Schmit methodically proceeded to pour the contents of the full bottle into the empty bottle to its right. This action – pouring the contents of the full into the empty container clockwise – was to continue until the water completely spilled or evaporated.

Performed for the 1963 Fluxus Festival in Amsterdam, the actions that constitute Zyklus für Wassereimer [oder Flaschen] (Cycle for Water-pails [or Bottles]) (1962) are direct and simple, subtle and conceptually sophisticated. The score permits the performer between ten and thirty bottles or buckets (eimer). Its duration depends upon the speed and precision with which the artist undertakes the process of pouring, a procedure either quickly resolved or enduring for long periods. The task may, but does not have to, depend upon skill. It is the kind of quiet action that a thoughtful child might perform as a means to study the operation of things.”

Excerpt from: Kristine Stiles, Between Water and Stone. Fluxus Performance: A Metaphysics of Acts, in: In the Spirit of Fluxus, , 1993

Tomas Schmit zyklus für wassereimer (oder flaschen) / zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) 1962 Original score Typescript on paper, extended by handwriting, double-sided, in German and English, A4 Typoskript auf Papier, handschriftlich erweitert, doppelseitig, in Deutsch und Englisch, A4 Tomas Schmit zyklus für wassereimer (oder flaschen) / zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) 1962 Original score Detail Tomas Schmit aktion ohne publikum / action without an audience 1965 24 Stunden, Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, 1965 Tomas Schmit land und meer

land und meer (land and sea) is an early example of Tomas Schmit’s diagrammatic methods in order to reflect about perception and philosophical topics. In this drawing he shows what it means when one changes the point of view when zooming in a picture – or in a wider sense, in a matter. In his writings, Schmit reflects in a witty and poetic way about the horizon: “some things look like a line, but are in fact a surface, thought the snail when it reached the horizon.” or: “of goals, said the horizon when being asked what it dreams of in the night. of paths, said the snail.”

Tomas Schmit land und meer 1975 Drawing; ink, pencil and colour pencils Zeichnung; Tusche, Blei- und Farbstift Paper / Papier: 61 x 43 cm, frame / Rahmen: 102 x 72 x 3 cm Tomas Schmit land und meer 1975 Detail Tomas Schmit land und meer 1975 Detail Tomas Schmit land und meer 1975 Detail Tomas Schmit please call me thank you

“Schmit questions the why and wherefore of all things and considers nothing be simply a given, neither nature nor art, and colours least of all.” (Stefan Ripplinger)

This characterization of Tomas Schmit’s practice explains also the background of the drawing please call me thank you which is about the complex subject of mimicry – a main theme in Schmit’s work, depicted with a chameleon in many of his drawings. Schmit was continuously preoccupied with open questions of evolutionary history and fascinated by the ocurrance of camouflage in nature, a phenomenon which is still not entirely investigated and not fully explainable.

In 2002, Schmit started to draw with ink on cardboard. Like this he found a way to avoid framing his drawings. He punched a hole into the cardboard for the nail on which the work can be hung. Schmit called this series “plates”. Many of his plate drawings are meanwhile part of important institutional and private collections.

Tomas Schmit please call me thank you 2003 Drawing; ink on cardboard; punched, titled, signed and dated; in portfolio; 2.9.2003 Zeichnung; Tusche auf Museumskarton; mit Loch, betitelt, signiert und datiert; in Mappe; 2.9.2003 60 x 48 cm Tomas Schmit please call me thank you 2003 Detail Tomas Schmit please call me thank you 2003 Detail Tomas Schmit please call me thank you 2003 Detail Tomas Schmit In 2004, Tomas Schmit conceived a digital drawing project. He created more than 200 images with yellow e-constellations dots, partly randomly partly intentionally placed, which are connected with thin lines. The images resemble 2004 stellar constellations. Similar to a slide show, Schmit edited the digital drawings as an image flow. DVD, 25 min. loop, colour, English audio Each image is named with German subtitles, with the English translation via voice-over. DVD, 25 Min. Loop, Farbe, Ton Englisch The digital drawings are like a school of seeing. Schmit’s e-constellations are about the endless Edition 75 + X a.p. possibilities of reading an abstract image – it is about seeing and playing.

Watch an excerpt here Tomas Schmit e-constellations 2004 Film still Tomas Schmit e-constellations 2004 Film still