Ceci n’est pas Jimmie Durham

Abstract

This article examines the idea that there can (or cannot) be an authentic cultural identity. Debates about identity and authenticity are particularly prevalent in North America where the idea of authentic (and inauthentic) Native identities is very strong, both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ Native communities. This is particularly so in terms of debates about treaty rights and resources wherein the issue of authenticity can be used as a benchmark for recognizing (or not recognizing) the claims of an individual, group or community. These questions will be explored by looking at how they are approached by the artist and writer Jimmie Durham, within the context of a piece of legislation known as the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (PL 101-644). This legislation and Durham’s responses, provide a useful viewpoint in terms of contributing to the ongoing debates about authenticity, identity and the politics of representation. I will attempt to demonstrate that these issues, although grounded in the ‘art world’, draw many parallels with the cultural, social, economic and political control and marginalization of North America’s indigenous peoples.

Living in a (Schrödinger’s) Box: Jimmie Durham’s Strategic Use of Ambiguity

“…20 As sociologist Laura Turney explained Durham' s choice to take a didactic role, "Native peoples need the trickster/ironist to destabilize disempowering and politically damaging images/notions of the 'Indian.'" 21 The artist' s use of interwoven and contradictory narratives also reflects a postmodern perspective on the world. His art can be seen in the varied lights of Michel Foucault' s theory of the body and the power of institutional knowledge, Jacques Derrida' s idea of inclusion and exclusion, Roland Barthes' idea of the sign, Mikhail Bakhtin' s theory of hybridity, Jean-François Lyotard' s emphasis on the petit récit (small narratives) over the grand récit, and Gayatri Spivak's subaltern.…”

Introduction

“…We begin to see the complexity of dance such that its choreography cannot be analysed entirely apart from political considerations and vice versa (cf. Turney 1999).…”