Jimmie Durham

Many of Durham’s sculptures from the 1980s combine text with found and constructed elements. He implements this approach in Self-portrait to reveal how identity, the presumed subject of portraiture, oscillates between an individually determined sense of self and culturally predetermined categorizations. The work’s hybrid form features a canvas cutout that follows the contoured outline of the artist’s body. Durham painted the raw-edged shape brown and affixed a colorful wood head and penis onto the flat surface. Hung on an armature in front of the wall, the canvas becomes a space on which various handwritten inscriptions commingle. Durham adorns the body with self-affirming phrases (“I am basically light hearted,” “People like my poems”) and then undermines these with fragmented references to physical imperfections (“useless nipple,” “appendix scar”). He also poignantly calls the viewer’s attention to stereotyped assumptions about Native Americans (“My skin is not really this dark, but I am sure that many Indians have coppery skin,” “Mr. Durham has stated that he believes he has an addiction to alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and does not sleep well”). While Durham’s unconventional self-portrait precludes a single understanding of the artist’s identity, it clearly articulates his wry and deeply critical understanding of self-referentiality in art.