Echoplex Joseph Beuys Ideas/Crash, Fat,Felt,Amerika,Politics, Recovery, Monument,
2003, Vitrine, model aeroplane, fat, felt 182 x 150 x 60 cm
Like the protest culture he speaks of, Durant's work is polyphonic, The perception of American culture has altered since the heady days of civil rights sit-ins and anti-war love-ins.
Durants proposal for a Monument of Altamont Raceway, Tracy, CA (1999) in turn connects the Stones to the disillusionment of 1960s idealism but also links their dubious appropriation of black culture to Proposal for Monument, Friendship Park, Jacksonville, FL (2000-1). Here allusions to the racial conflicts of the Deep South enmesh themselves within the references to lynchings and black popular music that appear more explicitly in Upside Down/PastoraJ Scene • (2002). With its roots reaching into both earth and sky, and speakers playing music ranging from Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' (1938) to Public Enemy's Tear of a Black Planet' (1990), Upside Down/Pastoral Scene presents us with mirrors and trees, bringing us back to reflecting on Smithson again, perhaps the one figure at the root of Durant's system. Earlier this year that-system stretched its tendrils into Europe with the work Echoplex Joseph Beuys Ideas/Crash, Fat, FeJt, America, Politics, Recovery, Monument (2003), which invoked another charismatic artist concerned with the political potential and social responsibilities of art.
Durant understands history is nothing but people. People are the problem und people are the solution.