Self Portrait Pretending to be a Stone Statue of Myself, 2006

Narrator: Durham called this photograph Self-Portrait Pretending to Be a Stone Statue of Myself.

Jimmie Durham: But of course, I'm not pretending to be. I'm pretending to be pretending to be.

This idea comes from an old Japanese idea that I love very much. The Middle Ages Japanese court had a special language that you pretended to be pretending to be sorrowful if a friend died. You pretended to be pretending to be happy if something happy happened.

I just like the idea of a double pretense, that you're not really living your life. You're not really there at all. I don't know how ‘here’ I am, but I know the self-portrait is already a double pretense.