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do-it
Perth International Arts Festival 2001
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia

Andrew Sunley Smith
Born: 1969, Saltburn, N.Yorkshire, England
Resides: Sydney, Australia

Jimmie Durham
Born: 1940, Washington, Arkansas, USA
Resides: Marseille, France

Do-it-yourself Museum Project
Instruction

Rooms contain objects that are visible yet not intended to be looked at. These include steam heat radiators, electric heat radiators, electric light switches, electrical outlets, electrical wires, water pipes, gas pipes, lighting fixtures, wooden trim, paint, surveillance cameras, burglar alarms, etcetera.

Using a graphite pencil or ballpoint pen, make a list on paper or wood of all the not-to-be-looked-at objects in a museum room.

Jimmie Durham 1996

Installation:

• Use a camera instead of a pencil
• Jimmie Durham grew sick of associations with feathers and beads
• Document all the objects aside from Indigenous artefacts = Strategies of avoidance, as we were taught.
• Level an argument that even a coffee cup is as anthropologically significant as a boomerang.
• Dynamics of high and low culture in art (hierachy)
• Exhibit all materials used in the production of a show
• Indicate a bit of Jimmy Durham in my show
• Exhibit the clichés which give us the ideas of another race and culture.
• Make people look at the very structure and craft employed in the workings of a museum or gallery
• Draw parallels with the Australian Aboriginal situation and that of the Native American Indian.
• Each situation is infinitely more complex than we think
• Collect all forms and representations of how we encounter and learn about Native American culture and “Indians” in my culture
•Keep Jimmie in mind

Forms:

1. A slide show, Images from the Berndt museum of anthropology,
2. A hand written wall of all the materials used in Jimmie Durham’s career so far, an American confederate soldier firing shots into the text of a Cherokee Indian,
3. A shelf containing all materials used to create the show, as well as some toys and cards of everyday introductions to indigenous cultures.

do-it Perth International Arts Festival 2001 Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia

do-it
Perth International Arts Festival 2001
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia