DAN GRAHAM

Interested in the socio-political function of art, Dan Graham has been creating a series of works, architectural models and sculptures for public use since the late 70’s. The physical and visual experience of the audience is an inherent part of the works.

Neo-Baroque Walkway, Dan Graham’s latest pavilion, will be on view on the gallery groundfloor.

‘Experiencing Neo-Baroque Walkway, the spectators walk through a narrow passage between two convoluted sine wave-like opposing two-way mirror coated glass walls. The two sides of convoluted forms slightly vary. The experience for the viewer involves a somewhat psychedelic, optical distortion of the spectator’s body which might be superimposed on images of other spectators’ bodies.’ Dan Graham, 2019

Whereas Dan Graham, in the same Marian Goodman Gallery space, presented four years ago, Passage Intime, which may have suggested the perils of romantic love, Neo-Baroque Walkway is more of a fun-house for children.

Every pavilion designed by Graham, although consisting invariably of two-way mirror glass and stainless steel, owns his unique structure and his unique concept deriving from multiple, yet precise references. For the Neo-Baroque Walkway, the artist refers to the baroque movement as the main source of inspiration, as well as John Chamberlain, an artist whose work has largely influenced him (in particular for his earlier pieces, Design for Showing videos and his article, Homes for America). Surprisingly, the connection between Chamberlain’s art and baroque sculpture dates back from 1964, when Donald Judd wrote in a review: ‘Chamberlain’s sculpture is simultaneously turbulent, passionate, cool and hard. The structure is the passionate part. The obvious comparison is to the structure of Baroque art (....)’.¹ A few decades later, in a 2011 article about John Chamberlain, Graham continued further somehow Judd’s comparison, this time associating Chamberlain’s work to Larry Bell’s: ‘Chamberlain began using Larry Bell’s coating machine to realise a series of convoluted near-transparent and semireflective forms, which resembled topologically distorted Klein bottles.’²

Considering Graham’s connection to the baroque, Chamberlain and Bell, rather than to conceptual art and minimalism, is key to the understanding of his new pavilion and his more recent works.

In the lower level of the gallery, a video projection will show the Spring/Summer 2017 Celine collection presentation for which Dan Graham designed the runway.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a special screening of the films Rock My Religion and Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty will take place at Cinéma Le Luminor-Hôtel de Ville at 6 pm on November 8. Both films reflect Graham’s interest in popular culture and in rock music in particular. Rock My Religion (1982–1984), probably his most iconic film, both a visual essay and a documentary, states the apparition of rock-and-roll as a new religion. Also an hybrid film, Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty (2004), is at the same time a live-recorded rock opera and a satirical puppet performance.

Concurrently at the Librairie Marian Goodman, his long-time partner and Japanese artist Mieko Meguro will present a large selection of paintings, drawings, artists’ books and embroided pillows depicting Dan Graham in a variety of playful and intimate moments.

Dan Graham was born in 1942 in Illinois. He lives and works in New York. Dan Graham has had retrospective exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2009); Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2001); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1997); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1993); the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (1985); Kunsthalle Berne (1983) and The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago (1981). In 2017 he had his first solo show in China, Dan Graham, Greatest Hits at the Red Brick Museum in Beijing. In 2015 he has exhibited his pavilions in France on the rooftop of the Cité Radieuse de Le Corbusier (MAMO) in Marseille and at the Place Vendôme in Paris. In 2014 he was invited by the New York Metropolitan Museum to participate in The Roof Garden Commission, whereas the Dutch De Pont Foundation presented the exhibition Models and Beyond. He has participated in Documenta V (1972), VI (1977), VII (1982), IX (1992), and X (1997) and in the Skulptur Projekte (1987) and (1997). He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2010), the French Vermeil Medal, Paris (2001), and the Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award (1992).

1 Judd, Donald. ‘Chamberlain—Another View,’ Art International. December 1963/January 1964, p 38-39.

2 Dan Graham, ‘John Chamberlain Conceptual Artist,’ reprinted in Nuggets: New and Old Writing on Art, Architecture, and Culture (Positions), 2004.