Jimmie Durham

1997

Sculpture, 250 x 150 x 100 cm.
Materials: painted metal

Collection: Collection Institut d'art contemporain, Collection Rhône-Alpes (Inv. no. 2003.003).

"The main piece in the show in Calais was an Arc de Triomphe For Personal Use. It’s made of wood, so it’s lightweight and you can fold it up and take it away with you and set it up again, each time you need it. Whenever you felt like you had a triumph you could set it up and walk through it. The wood was painted bright red, yellow and blue—the art colors.

I still like the piece, no one else has really liked it. I liked it so much that I even copied it for the Istanbul Biennial, last year, but I did it out of iron so it wouldn’t look so cute, and it was painted turquoise, because the show was in Turkey. It was a way of making iron look very light, like a drawing in air. It also folds up nicely and has wheels like a wheelbarrow." [full text here]