Jimmie Durham
image: (c) Maria Thereza Alves
A bronze sculpture in the form of a foot is not a foot, in the same way that a footnote is not a note attached to a foot. Jimmie Durham shows us in Footnote the absurdity of language and takes a metaphor literally in the form of a visual pun. “When we first became humans”, said Durham in an interview with Beverly Koski and Richard Hill, “and when we first started attempting to use language, we began using metaphor—and then we went crazy and we’ve been crazy ever since. As soon as you invent metaphor, and therefore language, everything reminds you of everything else and that’s crazy. That’s the human condition, but it’s really a sickness for artists though, isn’t it?”
The text on the note attached to the bronze foot reads: ‘At first I was shocked and angry’, said Tomio Kaiya, who makes and sells Dinosaur cookies, ‘I learned the news about the dinosaur only this morning when I read the newspaper…’