The names of the team of scientists who submitted an article on the human chromosome 14 in Nature magazine, February 2003 2003

This is Jimmie Durham’s ‘The names of the team of scientists who submitted an article on the human chromosome 14 in Nature magazine, February 2003’, made with mixed media on wood. Durham seems to have approached this piece with a sense of playful curiosity, laying down these little nameplates like he's naming constellations in a personal sky. Look at the raw, almost slapdash way he's attached those plaques. Some are straight, others tilted, creating a kind of organized chaos. It's like the scientific process itself, where order emerges from a sea of experiments, failures, and breakthroughs. The materials, too, feel very personal. The paint is thin in places, allowing the grain of the wood to peek through, as if acknowledging the inherent structure beneath the surface, which also seems like a metaphor for science, for discovery. And consider how this piece acts like a predecessor to Durham's later sculptural works, where found objects and materials come together in unexpected ways, always questioning, always suggesting multiple readings. This isn't about answers; it's about the questions we ask along the way.