For more than four decades, internationally-acclaimed conceptual artist Dan Graham has been foremost in his field. The CAG is mounting Graham’s first solo show in Vancouver to bring local attention to his influential body of work. Among the selected pieces are the early film work, Body Press (1970-2), as well as recent architectural plans for the Children's Pavilion – Graham's ambitious collaboration with local artist Jeff Wall.
Graham’s astonishing creative output includes live performances, installations, film productions, video works, photographs and architectural structures. Throughout, he has focused on an examination of human visual perception and our social interactions with space and materials – albeit on a large scale.
Publicly, Graham may be known best for designing a number of glass and metal pavilions used as architectural spaces for viewer interaction. The spaces are both shelters and settings for social interaction, with the added element of external/internal observation. For example in Fun House fur Munster, he used two-way mirror glass to make the sides of the pavilion both reflective and transparent. In other pieces, he has integrated the audience into artworks using film and performance.
Equally influential, Graham’s writing on art, artists and culture has had a profound effect on the development of new conceptual genres – predominantly, Vancouver-based photo-conceptualism. Accompanying the exhibition will be an artist’s talk at the Emily Carr Institute on September 24, and a pamphlet written by Reid Shier and Ian Wallace.
