cover price 10 euros
with an introduction by Thilo Folkerts
Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche-Antiga
Treviso 2023
in Italian and English
96 pages, 11 illustrations
ISBN 978-88-8435-403-7
(Memorie/Minima, 5)
Addressing the ubiquitous presence and role of nature in our lives, the sculptor, performance artist, activist and poet Jimmie Durham takes it upon himself to select and relay its presences. In the form of a diary, written in Berlin during the course of a year, Durham reflects and quite directly exposes forms, appearances and spirits of urban nature – and its entanglement with daily life.
The urban nature of Berlin as exemplified by the Natur Park Schöneberger Südgelände was the focus theme of the 32nd International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens. With the research for this prize, we learned how the concept of urban ecology was conceived decisively in Berlin in the 1970s, stimulated and driven by the city’s unique geographic and geo-political condition. Jimmie Durham was not a protagonist of this ecological discourse. Yet, maybe similar to when he moved to Europe, first to Geneva, in the 1970s, when he, provokingly, proclaimed an anthropological interest in the ‘savage’ mask and dance rituals of alpine cultures, Jimmie Durham continued in Berlin from 1998 to make systematic sculptural and literary observations of the habitat around him.
The images in this publication – some of which are published for the first time thanks to the collaboration of Jimmie Durham’s partner, artist Maria Thereza Alves – all reference Jimmie Durham’s sculptural work in Berlin. Most of the related projects are geographically connected to his studio at the edge of Grunewald, an immense public forest full of trees, birds, and many other beings, where he worked from 1998 until 2011.