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blanket has a dramatic force and is reminiscent of Robert Mother- Confronted with Jimmie Durham‘s objects, one wonders less ab-
well‘s famous series ‚Elegy of the Spanish Revolution‘. out their original function than their cultural-historical significance.
The wizard Durham transforms historical and modern artifacts into
‘Untitled‘ in mixed media (2010) by Michael E. Smith with its three novel beings in which, not least, his own Native American ancestry
black, bomb-like bodies also belongs in this context. Ultimately, ho- shines through. “I‘m trying to celebrate an unknown future,” Dur-
wever, the American Smith is, as it were, the still one, a resting pole ham admits, and the former political activist and conceptual artist
of the exhibition. As if set down incidentally, yet purposefully pla- of the first hour still succeeds in doing so today with equal humour
ced in the overall context, very idiosyncratic objects lie on the floor, and spirit and always carried by a modest ethos. The fragile crea-
an orange gas bottle or a finely worked wasp‘s nest; as leftover rem- tures spread an air of alien demons or spirits, an impression which,
nants, organic things can even take on grotesque human traits; they along with their scurrilous handmade form, always evokes a smile.
too tell of life and survival, comparable to the jockey caps dirty with Giving the battered television, with an interior as if hit by a stone
animal carcasses, that recall Smith‘s fellow sufferers from Detroit. and an ‚aerial‘, the title of ‚Resurrection‘, speaks of the storyteller‘s
sceptical and ironic attitude. It is also no accident that his essentially
The underlying facts are unobtrusively communicated through the abstract acrylic painting ‚Not exactly Fire‘ with the painted blazing
artist‘s finely crafted objects, at times even with a tension between flames hangs next to McMillian‘s burnt cloth.
seriousness and humour, as is the case with the romper suits. What
at first appears to be a fun children‘s game, makes a statement ab- Here it becomes already apparent that the artists‘ own lives and fa-
out discipline and coercion in its angular, disembodied wall-facing tes, or even the history of whole ethnic groups all play a special role
design. In this way the eloquent testimonies acquire metaphorical in this overview. Artists trace life paths and tell of events, if they can
meaning through a new life of their own and retain an alien beauty help bring the unknown to light and are relevant to the social or po-
and dignity. Tellingly, one of his exhibitions was titled ‚Materialism litical present. Thus the ink drawings and collages of the esteemed
of Basic Needs‘. Rolanda Teicher Yekutiel, who was born in Romania, and lives in Tel
Aviv, bear witness to the Lebanon War and the barbaric treatment

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