Artist, poet, performer, essayist, and American Indian Movement activist Jimmie Durham has lead an itinerant life, never settling in one medium or project, moving from his native Arkansas to New York, Mexico, Europe, and elsewhere. A Cherokee, Durham is concerned with Western preconceived notions and stereotyping of Native American Indians, so for him, an artistic practice is an alternative means of political activism. Through sculpture, performance, drawing, installation, and more, Durham tackles issues of national narratives, hegemony, and marginalized non-Western perspectives.

Stone—as it manifests in large chucks of rocks and pebbles alike—is a recurring subject in Durham’s work, as well as a channel by which to comment on art, power, and entropy. Using rocks to smash paint tubes and boulders to crush cars, Durham effectively points to complex social and political issues like the history of oppression, the traditional use of stone in sculpture, the fallacy of permanence, and the authority of nature. 

Durham has shown his work worldwide for several decades, including at the Whitney Biennial, dOCUMENTA, the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, the Venice Biennale, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and Antwerp’s Museum of Modern Art, among others. Additional selected exhibitions include solo shows at Rome’s MACRO Museum, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Munich Kunstverein.