Jimmie Durham

2008

Installation, variable dimensions.
Materials: painted oil barrels

Collection: Courtesy of the artist, Raymond Azibert, Carcassonne, and Galerie Michel Rein, Paris (Inv. no. JD1852).

“And yet many objects really are beautiful, aren’t they? Is there anyone who does not love oak barrels, with their beautiful shape, texture, and technology? I love metal oil barrels in the same way. (...) When these oil drums are new, they have marvelous words on them, like “Shell” or “Total”; when I was a boy, I remember there was the Humble Oil Company, whose barrels bore the legend “Humble.” For decades, I have used oil barrels, usually the ones that proclaim “Total,” which are bright orange. For the show in Paris, I am making a new piece titled after the petroleum-industry classification Sweet/Light Crude. It is 25 oil barrels stacked three barrels high, each one painted a different pastel color and with a different word: TRUE, PURE, GOOD, BRAVE, and so on.” [full text here]