By: Elizabeth Spier
Though he is an American artist, it seems like Dan Graham’s recent work is always seen in Europe: a retrospective of his work travelled there several years ago, and many of his pavilions have been installed in public spaces in Italy, Germany and England. Now, however, the prodigal son has returned home: his first American retrospective just opened last month at LA MoCA, and will travel to the Whitney and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis this fall. In anticipation of this large travelling show, the Marian Goodman Gallery’s current exhibition provides a small preview of Graham’s art. Though the retrospective, organized by Chrissie Iles and Bennett Simpson, features a wide range of Graham’s work—from his early photographs to performance documentation—Marian Goodman Gallery shows only his recent pavilion projects, including a full-scale pavilion, a stage set designed for the band Japanther for Performa ’07 and five pavilion models.
Marian Goodman’s exhibition highlights Graham’s well-known blending of architecture and sculpture. Though the first room in the exhibition contains the models, I decided to begin by looking at the largest piece, Crazy Spheroid: Two Entrances (2009). As the title suggests, this piece has two entrances that visitors can use to walk into the glass and steel structure. The curved walls of the pavilion reflect distorted views of fellow gallery-goers and create a bizarre feeling of warped space. As Graham explains in the press release, the pavilion “is an eccentric space and one’s expectations are confounded upon entering.”
The other large piece in this show, the stage set Graham created for Japanther, is more successful in interrupting our normal understanding of how we move through space and how we see ourselves. The glass and steel walls (which, in this case, aren’t solid, and fall somewhere between mesh wire and Jarlsberg) play with the differences between reflected light and transparency. As I moved around the piece, I could at times see through it, then suddenly my face was reflected back at me as the steel surfaces gave way to reflective glass. I found this to be the most dynamic piece of the show, one that requires some time to be spent with it. A video shot during Japanther’s performance on this stage set accompanies the piece.
Part of Dan Graham's stage set built for Japanther, with a recording of the band’s show on a monitor to the right.
Finally, the five models in the North Gallery are variations on this same theme of both distorted space and perception. While the models are interesting to look at for about a minute, it’s the video footage looping on two monitors that saves this room from total sterility. Both monitors show the realized works Graham built based on the models, installed outdoors in public spaces. We alternatively see children racing around the reflective walls and languid teenagers resting next to the structures. Such public spaces are more appropriate settings for these interactive works; their beauty and playfulness is lost when shrunk down to small sizes and placed atop white platforms.
Installation view of Graham's models.
This exhibition provides a comprehensive look at Dan Graham’s phenomenology-concerned pavilion pieces. Head straight to the large-scale works and spend time watching yourself and other visitors. When you’re finished at Marian Goodman, be sure to mark your calendar for the arrival of Graham’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum in June.
“Dan Graham” at Marian Goodman Gallery runs through March 28th Marian Goodman Gallery Take the F train to 57th Street and Avenue of the Americas Gallery Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10am-6pm Gallery Website: mariangoodman.com
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