Linen on Polyvinyl Chloride

Here, Jimmie Durham combines traditional materials (like linen) and supposedly “authentic” ones (like animal hide) with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), an industrial material used to make, among other things, water and sewer lines; this piece of pipe carries the brand name Apache. The sculpture looks almost utilitarian, yet any functionality remains mysterious—the open ends of the PVC pipe hinting at the capacity for or evacuation of content. This work thus simulates the ambiguity, indeed absurdity, of an ethnographic object extracted from its original context and isolated for display.