Collected Stones, by Jimmie Durham and Maria Thereza Alves, 2002

Jimmie Durham, Artist
Collected Stones (Incident at Middelberg, A Stone from Metternich's House in Bohemia, 13 Rue Fenelon, Enough!, A Heavy Stone, HTV, Pink Granite at Work, Un Projet A Lille, Nature Morte, Towards Light, A Stone at Home in Bed Asleep, Stoning the Refrigera… , 2002

Medium
Single-channel video, color, sound
Dimensions
21:39 min.
Credit Line
Courtesy of the artists and kurimanzutto, Mexico City. Video still courtesy of the artists and kurimanzutto

These short videos (shot by Maria Thereza Alves) show Jimmie Durham engaged in a wide variety of actions involving stones and rocks, a material the artist has returned to again and again. As a material used for making buildings, monuments, sculptures, and tools across cultures, stone is richly metaphoric, simultaneously generic and symbolic. Although there is a measure of violence in these vignettes, they are also sardonic and funny, so many games of rock-paper-scissors in which the rock always wins.