Since the 1960s, Dan Graham (1942 – 2022, USA) has been a seminal figure within the world of contemporary art. Exploring the dynamics at the intersection of art, architecture, pop culture, social spaces and social engagement, his succinct aesthetic allows our attention to focus on our own experience with his work and thus becomes integral to it.
Graham’s critical engagement manifests most alluringly in the glass and mirrored pavilions, which have been realised in sites all over the world. These instruments of reflection – visual and cognitive – highlight the voyeuristic elements of design in the built world; poised between sculpture and architecture, they glean a sparseness from 1960s Minimalism.
Through essays, videos, performance, photography, curatorial projects and his now iconic pavilion installations, Dan Graham’s work has inspired generations of artists and his influence is felt well beyond the boundaries of visual arts.
Dan Graham has received international acclaim for his practice, with permanent public projects in cities around the world. His work can be found in the collections of MoMA (New York), MOCA (Los Angeles), Tate Britain (London), Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburger), Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporanea (Brumadinho), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Bregenz), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Kunsthaus Zurich (Zurich), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israel), Wanås Foundation (Knislinge), Museum fur Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), SMAK Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent), Musee d’art Contemporain Lyon (Lyon), Museu d’art Contemporary de Barcelona (Barcelona), Julia Stoscheck Collection (Dusseldorf), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Chicago), among many others.
Graham has had notable recent solo exhibitions at Red Brick Art Museum (Beijing), Sirius Arts Centre (County Cork), MAMO (Marseille), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Turner Contemporary (London), Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (Zagreb), Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (Zurich), Museum de Pont (Tilburg), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and the Whitney Museum of Art (New York).