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Jimmie Durham

Arc de Triomphe for Personal Use (Prague version)
2004

Sculpture, 230 x 110 x 110 cm.

image: (c) Maria Thereza Alves
image: © Maria Thereza Alves

Collection: Collection Ellipse Foundation, Lisbon.

The first Arc de Triomphe for Personal Use was presented in Calais in 1996. Since then, a few versions of the “portable and collapsable arch” have been made by Durham. The artist’s parody of the idea of political power represented by monumental architecture is translated in this precarious structure made with poor materials, embedded here with artificial solemnity though the golden paint on the top.