Sam Durant

Durant received a BFA in sculpture in 1986 from the Massachusetts College of Art and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts.

From 2000–2022, Durant taught art at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. As of 2023, he is Professor of Sculpture in the Department of Art at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany.{{Cite web |last=Durant |first=Sam |date=2024-03-06 |title=Biography |url=https://www.samdurant.net/info/biography/ |access-date=2024-05-24 |website=www.samdurant.net |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Herzlich willkommen Prof. Dr. Ole W. Fischer, Prof.in Sofia Hultén, Prof. Sam Durant und Prof.in Dr. Katrin Ströbel |url=https://www.abk-stuttgart.de/aktuell/neuigkeiten/news-single-view/aktuell/show/News/die-abk-stuttgart-begruesst-vier-neue-professorinnen-zum-sommersemester-2023-ole-w-fischer-sofia-hulten-sam-durant-sowie-katrin-stroebel.html |access-date=2024-05-24 |website=www.abk-stuttgart.de}}

Durant's work has been exhibited internationally for more than three decades. Growing up near Boston, MA in the 1970’s he experienced the radical pedagogy of A. S. Neill, Maria Montessori, John Holt, anti-war demonstrations and the desegregation of the public school system. Exposure to an educational culture emphasizing democratic ideals, racial equality and social justice created the foundation for Durant’s artistic perspective.  Often taking up forgotten events from the past, his works make connections with present and ongoing social and cultural issues.  Durant’s methodology is research based but with an emphasis on social engagement, often working with communities and groups in collaborative situations.{{Cite web |last=Durant |first=Sam |date=2024-03-06 |title=Biography |url=https://www.samdurant.net/info/biography/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=www.samdurant.net |language=en}}  His work since the 2010s has been publicly oriented and often participatory. He has had solo museum exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand. His work has been the subject of nine monographic catalogs. Durant’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions including Documenta 13, the Yokohama Triennial, the Venice, Sydney, Busan, Liverpool, Panama, and the Whitney Biennials.  Durant has shown with several galleries including Blum & Poe{{cite web |title=Blum & Poe – Sam Durant |url=http://www.blumandpoe.com/artistpages/durant/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121231732/http://www.blumandpoe.com/artistpages/durant/index.html |archive-date=November 21, 2011 |access-date=December 4, 2011 |publisher=Blumandpoe.com |df=mdy-all}} in Los Angeles, Praz-Delavallade{{cite web |author=Praz-Delavallade |date=March 15, 2009 |title=Sam Durant |url=http://www.praz-delavallade.com/artists/Sam_Durant.html?from=artists |accessdate=December 4, 2011 |publisher=Praz-Delavallade}} in Paris/Los Angeles and Sadie Coles HQ[http://www.sadiecoles.com/sam_durant/index.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110107055123/http://www.sadiecoles.com/sam_durant/index.html|date=January 7, 2011}} in London and Catriona Jeffries in Vancouver. He is currently represented by Paula Cooper Gallery{{cite web |author=Sam Durant |title=Sam Durant |url=http://paulacoopergallery.com/artists/SDU |accessdate=December 4, 2011 |publisher=Paula Cooper Gallery}} in New York and Blum Gallery, Los Angeles, Tokyo and New York.

His work in the early 90s was influenced by his experiences working in the building trades as a carpenter and home builder. After seeing the seminal exhibition Blueprints for Modern Living at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles{{Cite web |title=Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses |url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/blueprints-for-modern-living-history-and-legacy-of-the-case-study-houses |access-date=2024-10-08 |website=www.moca.org |language=en}} Durant began several years of work investigating the social dynamics and class politics of Modernist architecture and design. He made collages, drawings and models, many of which were included in his survey show at MoCA in 2002.{{Cite web |title=Sam Durant |url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/sam-durant |access-date=2024-10-08 |website=www.moca.org |language=en}} He subsequently was inspired by the work of Robert Smithson, an artist interested in history and entropy. Smithson's legendary work Partially Buried Woodshed at Kent State University in Ohio led Durant to his ongoing interest in Monuments and Memorials.

In 2005, his exhibition "Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C." was shown at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.Sam Durant, Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions. Washington. D.C. (New York: Paula Cooper Gallery, 2005). This work developed out of a residency at the Walker Art Center{{cite web |url=http://air.walkerart.org/project.wac?cat_id=-2752 |title=Walker Art Center – Artists-in-Residence |publisher=Air.walkerart.org |access-date=December 4, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002153727/http://air.walkerart.org/project.wac?cat_id=-2752 |archive-date=October 2, 2011 |df=mdy-all }} in 2002. The work re-contextualises memorials to victims of the conquest of North America by reproduced 30 monuments from the period of US history known as the 'Indian Wars' that are based on similarities to the massive Washington Monument obelisk. In 2007, he compiled and edited a comprehensive monograph of Black Panther artist Emory Douglas’ work.Sam Durant, Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas (New York: Rizzoli, 2007). He curated two exhibitions of Douglas' work, Black Panther: the Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas{{cite web |url=http://www.moca.org/emorydouglas/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021012731/http://moca.org/emorydouglas/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 21, 2007 |title=Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas | MOCA The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles |publisher=Moca.org |access-date=December 4, 2011 }} at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2007) and the New Museum{{cite web |url=http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/415 |title=Emory Douglas: Black Panther |publisher=NewMuseum.org |access-date=December 4, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001035207/http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/415 |archive-date=October 1, 2011 |df=mdy-all }} in New York (2009). He is a co-founder of Transforma,{{cite web|url=http://www.transformaprojects.org/ |title=Transforma: New Orleans 2005–2010 |publisher=Transformaprojects.org |accessdate=December 4, 2011}} a cultural rebuilding collective project in New Orleans from 2005 to 2010. In addition, he was a finalist for the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize{{cite web |url=http://group.hugoboss.com/en/press_releases_482.htm |title=Hugo Boss Ag |publisher=Group.hugoboss.com |access-date=December 4, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320085151/http://group.hugoboss.com/en/press_releases_482.htm |archive-date=March 20, 2012 |df=mdy-all }} and has received a United States Artists Broad Fellowship and the Rappaport Art Prize.{{cite web|url=https://rappaportfoundation.org/fellow/sam-durant|title=Sam Durant|last1=Durant|first1=Sam|year=2017|website=Rappaport Foundation|access-date=2024-10-08}}

In a turn to public work Durant was an artist in residence at the Getty Center that led to What#isamuseum  (2013) a year-long participatory project. Working with curator Pedro Alonzo he produced Labyrinth (2015) in Philadelphia which addressed mass incarceration and The Meeting House (2016) in Concord, MA that took up the subject of race in colonial and contemporary New England.{{Cite web |title=Sam Durant: "The Meeting House" |url=https://thetrustees.org/exhibit/sam-durant-the-meeting-house/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=The Trustees of Reservations |language=en}}  Because of the often controversial subject matter of his work the large scale interactive sculpture entitled Scaffold (2012) was protested when the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis attempted to install it in 2017. The sculpture represented several significant gallows from US history and was meant to encourage reflection on the nation's use of capital punishment. A group of protesters led by Dakota tribal members objected to the inclusion of an image of the Mankato Gallows and the sculpture was subsequently removed.{{Cite web |last=Dickinson |first=Sheila |date=2017-06-05 |title=‘A Seed of Healing and Change’: Native Americans Respond to Sam Durant’s ‘Scaffold’ |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/a-seed-of-healing-and-change-native-americans-respond-to-sam-durants-scaffold-8454/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}} His most recent public work Untitled (drone) was the second commission for the High Line Plinth in New York.{{Cite web |title=Sam Durant - Resources |url=https://www.thehighline.org/sam-durant-resources/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=The High Line |language=en-US}}  It raised the issues of drone warfare and surveillance in American society. Other notable works have encompassed Italian anarchism, cartographic histories of capitalism, gestures of everyday refusal and a decolonizing realignment of Surrealism through incorporating artists and writers from the former French colonial world, like Aimé Césaire and Joyce Mansour. {{Cite web |last=Durant |first=Sam |title=Work |url=https://samdurant.net/work/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=www.samdurant.net |language=en}}

In recent years Durant has done several projects about the Nonaligned Movement. The work Proposal for Nonaligned Monuments, Free Movement (2020) his travelling project Nonaligned Echoes, Gifts and Returns (2024) began in Podgorica, Montenegro and Ljubijana, Slovenia and includes a curated selection from the collection of the "Josip Broz Tito" Art Gallery of the Nonaligned Countries.[https://msucg.me/en/sam-durant-exhibition-in-gallery-of-mcam/]

His work can be found in many public collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia{{cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/ |title=The Art Gallery of Western Australia Website |publisher=Artgallery.wa.gov.au |accessdate=December 4, 2011}} in Perth, Tate Modern{{cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/ |title=Tate Modern: International modern and contemporary art |publisher=Tate.org.uk |accessdate=December 4, 2011}} in London, Project Row Houses{{cite web|url=http://projectrowhouses.org/about/ |title=About |publisher=Project Row Houses |accessdate=December 4, 2011}} in Houston, the Walker Art Center{{cite web|url=http://www.walkerart.org/collections/artists/sam-durant/ |title=Walker Art Center Collections |publisher=Walker Art Center |accessdate=April 6, 2017}} in Minneapolis, and the Museum of Modern Art{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/ |title=The Museum of Modern Art |publisher=MoMA |accessdate=December 4, 2011}} in New York.

• Sam Durant et al., The Death of the Artist (New York: Cabinet Books, 2019). {{ISBN|9781932698893|1932698892}}

• [http://www.samdurant.com Sam Durant website ]
• [http://heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.SCULPT.SAM%20DURANT.htm Heyoka Magazine Interview] with John LeKay

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Category:1961 births

Category:Artists from Seattle

Category:Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni

Category:California Institute of the Arts alumni

Category:Artists from California

Category:Living people

Category:California Institute of the Arts faculty

Category:Academic staff of State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart