"RODNEY GRAHAM: A Little Thought"

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"Fantasia for Four Hands"

Rodney Graham, "Fantasia for Four Hands," 2002, two framed colour photographs, 101" x 77" each, edition of four and one artist’s proof.

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"Production photograph from Loudhailer"

Rodney Graham, "Production photograph from Loudhailer," 2003, double 35mm film projection, 10 minutes, projected in continuous loop.

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"Fantasia for Four Hands"

Rodney Graham, "Fantasia for Four Hands," 2002, two framed colour photographs, 101" x 77" each, edition of four and one artist’s proof.

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"Flanders Trees (detail)"

Rodney Graham, "Flanders Trees (detail)," 1989-2001, camera obscura photo, 90" x 70".

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RODNEY GRAHAM

Rodney Graham:A Little Thought makes its third North American appearance February 5 to May 8, 2005 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

By Grant Arnold

The mid-career retrospective exhibition Rodney Graham: A Little Thought focuses on Graham’s video and film work, from the projection events of the late 1970s through to recent costume dramas, in which the artist emerges as an absurdist entertainer caught in his own circular narratives.

In addition to film and video not previously seen in Vancouver, the exhibition includes photographs, sculptures and audio recordings that demonstrate Graham’s masterful use of genres, from minimalism to film noir, from James Bond to Charlie Chaplin and from Richard Wagner to Pink Floyd. Beautifully produced and fascinatingly complex, Graham’s works are among the most compelling art being made today.

Born in Abbotsford, BC, in 1949, Rodney Graham began his artistic practice in Vancouver during the 1970s, a moment in which the work of the legendary American artists Dan Graham and Robert Smithson figured influentially in an artistic community enlivened under the leadership of local artists Jeff Wall and Ian Wallace. He was stimulated by this environment and continues to cite these beginnings in recent work.

While often identified with the so-called “Vancouver School” of contemporary photographers, Graham’s art has taken a singular and arcane path, combining whimsical references to pop culture with a rigorous and multidisciplinary breadth.

Graham is commonly described as a conceptual artist. His systematic, research-oriented methods often resemble those found in conceptual art. But the scope of his artistic and intellectual pursuits defies categorization. His self-reflexive and humourous art embraces an extraordinary and at times elusive variety of approaches and forms.

Through several distinct series, his oeuvre loops back upon itself, restating structural devices and themes that borrow from 19th century scientific experiments and 20th century pop culture, as well as from the literary innovations and artistic legacy of Modernism.

Repetition has become a hallmark of Graham’s work, one that is not simply a formal attribute, but an amusing and mesmerizing psychological dimension.

Rod Chapman of Galleries West caught up with Rodney Graham in Vancouver following the artist’s return from a November vacation in Europe. We discovered that Graham’s first big show at home is making him nervous.

How was Rodney Graham: A Little Thought received during its runs last year in Toronto and Los Angeles?

Very well received. The show in Toronto was a good installation, with lots of space dedicated to it which is nice because the pieces are multimedia and they demand a lot of space. I played a concert in both places and the concerts were well received, and I was happy about that. Of course I’m looking forward to it coming to Vancouver.

What’s the significance of having the show in Vancouver? Is it a big thing for you to have it at home?

Yes it is. Last time I did an exhibition in Vancouver it was a small solo show in 1987. This will be the first really big show that I’ve done in my own home town – it’s kind of nerve-wracking.

You’ve listed Jeff Wall and Ian Wallace as two of your main influences. Were there others?

People like Dan Graham and Robert Smithson of course. Dan came here quite a bit and he was like a personal influence – Smithson I never really knew. Dan’s influence was partly his interest in music. Music has become more and more important in my work in recent years. Ian was my teacher at UBC when I was an undergraduate and I studied with Jeff. Later they became friends. Ian was an important influence in the early days at UBC, and of course their work is important for Vancouver in general.

Tell me about Camera Obscura, the inverted tree images you've worked with, and the mediated view of nature.

I did that work while I was at Simon Fraser studying with Jeff. The Camera Obscura piece led to the series of inverted trees that I did in the 1980s, and still do occasionally. At the time it was the idea of the apparatus mediating between perception and reality, the photographic apparatus that preconditions our perceptions. I’m not really so much interested in that anymore. My relationship with photography is not so intense. I’m more into film performance now.

As in City Self/Country Self?

Yes, as in that whole trilogy of costume pictures I made, that piece along

with How I Became A Ramblin’ Man. It’s partly my personal history, coming from living in the country while I was growing up. The dichotomy between urban and rural is something that has occupied artists for a long time. I guess I am working within that tradition.

I’m intrigued by the way that you use looping techniques in your films.

The obvious thing is the practical context. A gallery or museum situation is not the same as a cinematic one, where people show up on time to see a movie and then they leave when it’s over. The basic impulse, the reason for the looping technique is simply that. But given that it’s convenient to loop a film when you are showing it in a gallery context, certain issues come out of that – at what point do you loop it? You can play with it in certain ways. It’s practical, but it becomes a formal issue. I think about how the story line is going to be structured, and how the beginning and end are going to be joined. It creates certain problems and paradoxes – those kinds of things are fun to deal with. It evokes issues about repetition in general that might be interesting to others or maybe not, I don’t know.

Can you talk about the sense of mimicry in your work, where you take a scene from the past and recreate it in lavish detail?

Yes, the City Self/Country Self piece is specifically about that. I kind of extrapolated from an Épinal print that I found in a 19th century children’book of a country bumpkin being kicked in the butt by a stereotypical city dandy. I was interested in that, and turning it into a film. In this case I justworked with some small detail and expanded out. I don’t read French very well but the image telegraphed the story. The costumes were so clearly that of a peasant and a citified dandy – I was interested in playing with those obvious types.

What about the idea of impersonation?

I try to create a scenario that I can handle. I’m not really a skilled actor, and since I perform in the films myself I try to find some simple type that I can do. I just let the costume and a certain kind of bearing represent things.

So your convict persona in A Reverie Interrupted by the Police is

an example?

Yes, the costume really telegraphs it out. I don’t have to do a lot of acting because I’m not really an actor. It’s not so much mimicry as playing an obvious type.

It’s been said that your work causes people to think about how we learn to see and what we are editing out. Are you thinking about that sort of thing when you are conceiving of a piece and executing it?

No, I don’t really think about those kinds of things. I tend to work in a more mundane way, I don’t really think about those larger issues.

That’s for the art critics, then?

Yes, in a way.

So what drives you? Can you describe a piece that you are working on right now?

Yes, I’m doing a new piece that’s a little bit about the painter Morris Louis. It’s going to be a large photographic work. I’m playing a collector who has decided to become a painter.

What is it about the Morris Louis piece that intrigues you?

I’m becoming more interested in painting, in attempting to do it myself. I’m interested in the drip painting that he was doing, and the fact that he did it in his house, a small bungalow in Washington, DC. The fact that he did it at home, which is the way I like to paint too. It’s really kind of anecdotal.

So we can expect more paintings from you in the future?

Yes, I’m concentrating on doing film projections in the gallery, and my music, and painting too. My training is in art history and I didn’t go to art school, so I didn’t learn a lot of technique. Working in film means working with other people, and relying on other people to help out. So that’s how I got into conceptual work, where I don’t necessarily actually do it myself. With the music it’s more about me being directly involved, and with the painting it’s like that too.

Organized jointly by the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Rodney Graham: A Little Thought was co-curated by Grant Arnold in Vancouver, Jessica Bradley in Toronto, and Connie Butler in Los Angeles. An illustrated catalogue is available at the VAG.

Rodney Graham is represented by: Donald Young Gallery, Chicago; Hauser & Wirth, Zurich; Lisson Gallery, London, and 303 Gallery, New York.