"Wearing a suit, Jimmie Durham sits behind a desk like a bureaucrat performing his duty: smashing things. In an orderly manner, a person goes in, delivers an object, Durham smashes it with a prehistoric stone tool - violently but impassively. He stamps and signs a piece of paper as receipt and gives it to the same person, who goes off-scene. The same order of events is repeated several times during 92 minutes. This video-performance was part of Durham’s teaching residency at Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy, in 2004."
Source: http://ensembles.mhka.be/actors/jimmie-durham
Jimmie Durham & Maria Thereza Alves, 'Smashing', 2004
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Michel Rein, Paris (Inv. no. AMVP 3253).
