Jimmie Durham first showed at Matt’s Gallery in 1988. Almost twenty years on, Durham will return to the Gallery this Autumn to present a series of intimate performance events leading to a large-scale sculptural installation.

Jimmie Durham has described the role of the artist as one who rearranges objects that exist in society. In Building a Nation, Durham will construct an installation using natural and manufactured materials combining wood, laminates, glass and metal. Quotations selected by Durham from famous Americans about Native Americans will be interspersed around the structure.

Each week during the installation, Durham will make a performance / presentation as he is working, revealing the progress of the structure and sharing ideas. These presentations will be conducted by Durham in the interchangeable guises of carpenter, craftsman and teacher.

Since moving to Europe from Mexico in 1994, Durham has concentrated on the problems of belief and monumentalism in art and has worked against architecture. Durham has said, ‘Now we can begin, it seems to me, to be more seriously confused, to be more profoundly confused than we were before, especially if we can make a final break within the heroic project of art and architecture.’