Rodney Graham in 2022. (courtesy Lisson Gallery, London, photo by Sven Boecker)
Vancouver artist Rodney Graham, hailed by friends as a "laid-back polymath," died Saturday, after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 73.
"We've lost our dear Rodney, a genius artist, dear friend, master of disguise, snappy dresser, supplier of dry humour, an amazing songwriter, always modest, an understated intellectual, gifted amateur, professional connoisseur, Sunday painter who seldom worked Sundays, ultimately a true professional in every sense of what it means to be an artist," Nicholas Logsdail, founder of the Lisson Gallery in London, said in an online announcement.
Graham, born in 1949 in Abbotsford, B.C., was steeped in art, music, film, literature, psychoanalysis and popular culture. He emerged as a lens-based artist in the 1970s alongside photo-conceptualists Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall.
“He knew no limits,” Wallace told the Vancouver Sun. “He was an amazing guy, I just learned so much from him.”
Graham's works, often performative, included Spinning Chandelier, a public artwork that was installed under the Granville Bridge in 2019. The piece was commissioned for the City of Vancouver by the developer Westbank at a cost of $4.8 million, but was critiqued for its apparent celebration of luxury in a city that is increasingly unaffordable.
Graham was a musician who performed and wrote his own songs, often with his band, and he also acted for large-format back-lit cibachromes, depicting himself in various roles, such as a gallery owner, an abstract painter and a lighthouse keeper.
Rodney Graham, "Two Movements for Prepared Cello," 2010
cello, chair, carpet, vitrine, two cufflinks, pair of shoes, shirt, black suit, bow tie, film, score and sound, dimensions variable (courtesy Rennie Collection, Vancouver, photo by Blaine Campbell)
He became a painter later in life, but said he was just playing a role. "It may be a burden to reinvent oneself again and again," he said, "but it makes things more interesting."
He was named to the Order of Canada in 2016 and received the the Audain Prize for lifetime achievement in the visual arts in 2011.
Source: Lisson Gallery, Vancouver Sun
