Dan Graham

A conceptual artist, architect, photographer, performer, video artist, and critic, Dan Graham began in the 1960s to reflect on the artistic system, focusing particularly on the mechanism of perception offered by works in different contexts. Since the early 1970s the ideology that underpins social phenomena such as rock music and architecture has been at the center of his work. Inquisitorial ads in newspapers, revealing contributions to magazines, antirational architectural works, and exterior and interior pavilions than combine formal simplicity with visual complexity are some of the many means through which Graham has explored his theories. His video work Rock My Religion (1982-1984) explores how rock music as an art form parallels the development of the Shaker religion in America, especially its emphasis on ecstatic spirituality and trance experience. Three Linked Cubes/Interior Design for a Space Showing Videos (1986) consists of a series of rectangular bays with alternating two-way mirrors or transparent glass. Video monitors and speakers have been placed inside to allow separate programs for audiences divided into different groups. The work is at once a piece of architecture and a work of optical art; the mix of reflective and transparent surfaces allows viewers to see both the videos and their own and others' reactions to the videos as the exhibition space becomes a social space. Borders between private and public, separate and collective, inside and outside are all questioned within this structure. Graham's video viewing structures were included in documenta X and the Whitney Biennial, both in 1997.