Dan Graham

Dan Graham (born 1942) is one of the most influential figures of contemporary art both for his roles as an artist, writer and art critic. During his more than 40 year career he has worked with film, video, performance, photography, and sculpture/installation.

Dan Graham has created pavilions in glass and steel since the early 1980s. They appear as merges between a traditional garden pavilion, a modernist building and a Minimal sculpture. This upheaval of conventional boundaries between architecture and sculpture produces a kind of intentional ambivalence in Graham’s work. The pavilions use space and double-sided mirror to draw in the visitor, the relationship between visitor and artwork being the focus of Graham’s overall artistic project. In spite of or perhaps even due to their reduced and minimal appearance, the pavilions offer a rich perspective on the psychology of our culture. They respond to changes in light and the visitors that come and go. They act as stages for meetings and encounters and make us reflect on our relationship to art, our surroundings, ourselves, and other people.