Pirogenético, pirogenético

Born in 1940 in the United States, Jimmie Durham spent much of the 1970s as an activist in the American Indian Movement, before returning to an art practice informed by the critique of imperialism and racism. In Pirogenético, pirogenético, 2009, he re-engages with the myths of Mexico – his home between 1987 and 1994 – and explores the potential of obsidian, the hard, black rock that breaks or sharpens to a fine edge, used for weapons by pre Columbian civilisations. Three pieces cut like flints dialogue with their casts in German silver, an alloy of copper, silver, zinc and nickel. This diptych, whose arrangement draws both on the cabinet of curiosities and the presentation of sacrificial offerings on the altars of ancient Mexico, seems to contain a latent violence, yet a violence transfigured by the beauty of the materials.