CONFLICT
With Jimmie Durham
Here is our first run, and we are very proud to feature an extensive, generous, and witty article by international artist Jimmie Durham.
He writes about reconciliation, resistance, and language.
Architect Bita Azimi draws a sensitive line from the myth of Antigone to Gropius and investigates architecture in the political representation/play.
Offensive freedom in Art is addressed in a provocative article by Greek intellectual, Konstantinos Papageorgiou. You’ll also find out how dancer Satchie Noro uses an axe as a dancing partner, where strength and balance serve the practice of justice.
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“I don’t want to be reconciled”
EXCERPT
Let us all feed the birds
by Jimmie Durham
(misuse of punctuation and spelling is intentional)
bene; a good place to start:::
in my mind to not be reconciled means that i do not accept the way things are.
in 1963 i began to write poetry seriously (and still see it as my main endeavor). language is so stupid. so inadequate. so enveloping. first of all, it tells us that we cannot think without it (a ridiculous idea). then it refuses our attempts to communicate,,, especially if i want to say something important to another person, “i love you”, “stop doing that”, “look at this”, etc. it is impossible;;;; always misunderstood. yet we cannot tolerate being alone; we need to communicate.
poetry, for me, can break the stranglehold of language by using it against its own rules and strictures. i hate language, but i try to use it. to imagine that i am full of hatred,,,, yes i am. no i am not. i do not accept what is,,,, and i think people do not, we only pretend to. maybe this weirdity has led me to resist whatever is presented as what must be. i mean, how is it that the human world has been run by men for the past half a million years and why should that continue? why should one group of people act superior to another? why should i accept stupidity?
resistance and survival are probably the same thing, n’est ce pas?
“to imagine that i am full of hatred,,,, yes i am. no i am not. i do not accept what is,,,, and i think people do not, we only pretend to.”
“i hate music because it, like language, is undeniable.”
(…) all of life is funny, because it is so serious and unfunny. no death is at the right moment, no death is funny. in the morning you put on your shoes, intending to eat breakfast. but then you are struck dead instead. that is really funny. or maybe you intend to tell your lover something vital, find that it is too late. died a few minutes ago… the fact that we cannot reconcile ourselves to death is really funny.
a friend of mine worries about death all of the time, he is afraid of it. i say, don’t worry,,, you are going to die:::.
“i decided early on to not accept the way things are. and at the same time i could see that i was helpless to do much. (i did everything i could to make sure that everyone around me had food, even the tadpoles in rain pools which would die when the water dried up. sometimes i would add water to the pool until they became frogs).”
Director – David Liver
Deputy Director – François Combin
Art Director – Frédéric X. Liver
Contributions by – Bita Azimi, Kostantinos Papageorgeous, Satchie Noro.
Cover art – Frédéric X. Liver
Translations – Rose Derozan.
Published with and for the Council of Europe (ICC)