19 Facts About Jimmie Durham

Jimmie Bob Durham was an American sculptor, essayist and poet.

Jimmie Durham was active in the United States in the civil rights movements of African Americans and Native Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, serving on the central council of the American Indian Movement.

Jimmie Durham returned to working at art while living in New York City.

Jimmie Durham was born on July 10,1940, in Houston, Harris County, Texas, although he claimed he was born in Nevada County, Arkansas, or Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas.

Jimmie Durham's parents were Jerry Loren Durham and Ethel Pauline Simmons Durham, both born in Arkansas and buried in Texas.

In 1969 Jimmie Durham moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

In 1973, Jimmie Durham returned to the United States and became involved with the American Indian Movement.

Paul Chaat Smith and Jimmie Durham resigned from the IITC and AIM in 1979 over disagreements about AIM's support of Cuba and other Soviet allies.

Jimmie Durham created sculptures that challenged conventional representations of North American Indians.

Jimmie Durham's poetry was included in Harper's Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry.

Jimmie Durham published a number of essays in periodicals, including Art Forum, Art Journal, and Third Text.

Jimmie Durham participated in A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water: The 5th Gwangju Biennale in 2004.

In 2005 Jimmie Durham co-curated with Richard William Hill The American West, an attack on cowboy and Indian mythology, at Compton Verney, United Kingdom.

In 2010 Jimmie Durham presented his Rocks Encouraged in the Portikus exhibition hall in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Jimmie Durham claimed to be quarter-blood Cherokee and to have grown up in a Cherokee-speaking community.

Jimmie Durham was raised in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, as his father traveled looking for work.

In June 2017, ten Cherokee tribal representatives, artists, and scholars published an open letter about Durham, titled, "Dear Unsuspecting Public, Jimmie Durham Is a Trickster - Jimmie Durham's indigenous identity has always been a fabrication and remains one":.

Jimmie Durham is neither enrolled nor eligible for citizenship in any of the three federally-recognized and historical Cherokee Tribes: the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Nation.

Jimmie Durham died on November 17,2021, in Berlin, Germany, at the age of 81.