Jimmie Durham

2010

Installation, variable dimensions.
Materials: petrified wood, text

Collection: Courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City (Inv. no. JD2314).

The installation Rocks Encouraged consists of big pieces of petrified wood enclosed in a sound-proof space where one spectator at a time can enter. Jimmie Durham explains: “I knew that one could do something highly concentrated. I bought the beautiful strange stones in Berlin, because I could not resist them …Then I had to think what to do with them that would not seem a desecration or either too simplistic, so I thought that making people experience them without jabber, without comparisons, without distractions … One person at a time; no matter how theatrical or impractical that might turn out… I wanted the most thoughtful, meditative piece”

[For the full text read the press text of the exhibition Rocks Encouraged in Portikus, Frankfurt, where this work was first exhibited]

The poem hanging on the wall inside the installation is called Middle and was first published in the book Columbus Day in 1983. Its two last verses read: “Trees gave seeds. And rocks encouraged”. [To read the full poem click on the assets bellow]