The exhibitions Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp and Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens are a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.   

28.04.2017 - 07.01.2018        

M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen - Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerpen

EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Kallirrois Avenue & Amvr. Frantzi Str., Athens 11743

Jimmie Durham

(c)image: Rosino/Wikimedia Commons
Rabbit, 1990
Sculpture , 51 x 66 x 120 cm
Skull, shells, wood, paint, text

On a strange green totem-like structure - a rabbit, says the title -, made of machine parts and an animal skull decorated with beads and shells, hangs a piece of text. Handwritten, almost child-like, glued onto a piece of wood; a scientific text about light particles. The unexpected combination creates a contradiction between an object with an intentional “primitive” touch, answering to expectations of what exotic and non-civilized looks like, and the erudition of a scientific discourse which in its turn struggles to impose any authority.