Rodney Graham


Book Description

"Urban parkland, invention and repetition are the key motifs of Rodney Graham’s Phonokinetoscope (2001). Drawing together Graham’s early commitment to photography and subsequent investigations into film, music and installation, the work consists of a turntable driving a projector, a vinyl LP with psychedelic rock song written and performed by the artist, and a 16mm film loop featuring Graham riding a bicycle around Berlin’s Tiergarten, while tripping on acid. In this book, Shepherd Steiner discusses Phonokinetoscope as a pivotal work in the context of the artist’s early explorations of proto-cinema and later preoccupations with the ‘temporal object’. He uncovers a practice indebted to deconstruction and a picture of an artist engaged in the most pressing issues confronting contemporary art and theory: reference, mimesis, performance, the legacy of minimalism, topology, irony and memory."--Publisher's description.




Rodney Graham


Book Description

The figure of the artist remains a central subject of investigation for Rodney Graham, known for straddling many areas simultaneously--painter, photographer, writer, philosopher, actor, psychologist, scientist, and musician.This new monograph gathers together works made between 1994 and 2017, in particular his photographic lightboxes and his musical production.Contradicting the title, That's Not Me the lightbox series focuses on the use of the self-portrait. Graham shows himself starring in various fictional roles (artist, musician, actor, lighthouse keeper, paddler, reader) at different times.According to curator Alessandro Vincentelli, Graham likes to look back at history and repeat it through his work, by 'stirring up art history with multiple and varied cultural references, so that the signals are subtly altered for the viewer.'Through his visual production, Rodney Graham questions the fundamental perception of the image and invites the public to participate in shaping its meaning.This title also highlights Graham's musical works. In his essay Robert Linsley retraces Graham's career as a musician and observes the connections that can be made between some of the songs and Graham's visual production.Published with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, in association with IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and on the occasion Rodney Graham's exhibition, That's Not Me at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (17 March - 11 June 2017).




The System of Landor's Cottage


Book Description




Dan Graham


Book Description

Dan Graham's Rock My Religion (1982-84) is a video essay populated by punk and rock performers (Patti Smith, Jim Morrison, Black Flag and Glenn Branca) and historical figures (including Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers). This coming together of several narrative voice-overs, of singing and shouting voices, of jarring sounds and text overlaid onto shaky, gritty images, proposes a historical genealogy of rock music and an ambitious thesis on the origins of America. In this illustrated book, Kodwo Eshun examines this landmark work of contemporary moving image in relation to Graham's wider body of work and to the broader culture of the time, especially in relation to history, popular culture, and individual and communal identity.




The Central Questions of Philosophy


Book Description

In this introduction to some of the most frequently discussed areas of philosophy, Sir Alfred Ayer made his subject accessible to both the general reader and the student. Among the topics covered are the nature of philosophy, varieties of philosophical analysis, theory of knowledge, status of physical objects, relations between body and mind, character of scientific explanation, theory of probability, elements of logic and the claims of theology. Although it ranges more widely, the book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy.




Marcel Broodthaers


Book Description

Marcel Broodthaers's (Belgian, 1924-1976) extraordinary output across mediums placed him at the center of international activity during the transformative decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his career, from early objects variously made of mussels, eggshells, and books of his own poetry; to his most ambitious project, the Musée d'Art Moderne. Département des Aigles; and the Décors made at the end of his life, Broodthaers occupied a unique position, often operating as both innovator and commentator. Setting a precedent for what we call installation art today, his work has had a profound influence on a broad range of contemporary artists, and he remains vitally relevant to cultural discourse at large. Published to accompany the artist's first museum retrospective in New York, Marcel Broodthaers examines the artist's work across all mediums. Essays by the exhibition organizers Christophe Cherix and Manuel Borja-Villel, along with a host of major scholars, including Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Jean François Chevrier, Thierry de Duve, and Doris Krystof provide historical and theoretical context for the artist's work. The book also features new translations of many of Broodthaers's texts.




British Weathervanes


Book Description

A new work by Vancouver conceptualist Rodney Graham (born 1949) is always guaranteed to surprise and amuse in equal measure. Indeed, the idea of amusement, espoused by Duchamp as an aesthetic aspiration, is expanded by Graham in British Weathervanes to include the idea of folly, as espoused by the sixteenth-century humanist scholar Erasmus, author of The Praise of Folly (1511). Graham's Erasmus weathervane, made for the cupola of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, shows the author, modeled by the artist, reading a book while riding a horse backwards (elaborating on the anecdote that Erasmus wrote The Praise of Folly on horseback). Erasmus' weather-blown obliviousness continues Graham's inquiry into involuntary journeys and cyclical and backward motion. This beautifully produced artist's book derives its design from the 1940s series Britain in Pictures and contains photographs, drawings and essays on the project alongside a letter by Erasmus.




Dan Graham


Book Description

A collection of essays on a key figure in postminimalist art, with texts spanning thirty years. Since the 1960s, Dan Graham's heterogeneous practice has touched on such disparate subjects as tract housing, the Shakers, punk music, and architectural theory; he has made videos, architectural models, closed-circuit installations, and glass pavilions. Graham, who came of age during the emergence of earth art, minimalism, and conceptualism, has situated his work on the borders between these different strains of contemporary practice. Although varying widely in subject and medium, Graham's artwork and writings display a consistent interest in spectatorship, public-private relationships, and the constructed environment. Graham's extensive writings on his own work (collected in Rock My Religion and Two-Way Mirror Power, both published by the MIT Press) have made him, by default, the primary interpreter of his own art. This October Files volume provides a counterweight, gathering key texts by critics and theorists that offer alternative accounts of Graham's art. The essays span thirty years and include hard-to-find texts from exhibition catalogs and journals. The authors include such distinguished theorists, critics, and artists as Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Beatriz Colomina, Thierry de Duve, and Jeff Wall.




Musical Paintings


Book Description

Text by Delia Brown, Rodney Graham, Damien Hirst.




Theatre


Book Description

A facsimile of Graham's ultra-rare artist's book documenting early performance works Originally published in 1978 and produced here in facsimile form, Theatreis an artist's book documenting seven early performance works by Dan Graham (born 1942) taking place from 1969 to 1977, with notes, transcripts and photo documentation for each performance. These performances catch the artist at a unique moment, as he shifts away from his early media works and towards his hallmark video and written work around underground music and youth culture. The works in Theatrefocus primarily on the psychological and social space between individuals and the roles they serve inside the arena of performance, subverting them by creating conditions by which a performer or audience simultaneously functions as both (creating a type of feedback loop through social transgression). Like most of Graham's work, these performances also serve as a critique of cultural norms, with many of the performances utilizing quotidian, social acts that are amplified over time.