| |
 |
|
 |
|
The myth, as much as the actuality, of the West - the frontier - has intermittently engaged veteran American artist Bruce Nauman and his younger Canadian counterpart Rodney Graham. The deadpan, disarmingly irreverent, or nonchalant tone of their works acknowledges the inescapable filtering of this tenacious thematic, first enshrined in cinema and later in music, through a haze of decades of relentless appropriation by high and low culture alike. ". . . the nearest faraway place . . ." assembles new and earlier works that reflect the artists’ shared interest in this subject so seminal to the North American imaginary.
|
|
| Checklist of Works |
|
Bruce Nauman
1. Hanging Carousel (George Skins a Fox), 1988
steel and polyurethane foam, motor, color videotape with sound
204 inches in diameter
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Gerald S. Elliot Collection
2. Green Horses, 1988
chair, 2 video players, 2 monitors, projector
dimensions variable
Collection of Lannan Foundation
Future gift to Dia Center for the Arts
3. Doppelgänger/UFO, 1988
steel beam, steel cable, two portable audiocassette players, motor
157½ inches in length
Annibale Berlingieri Collection, Rome
4. Setting a Good Corner, 2000
edition of 40
single-channel video, DVD-R format
59 minutes
Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York
Rodney Graham
5. 75 Polaroids, 1976
installation, various media
12 x 12 x 12 feet
Courtesy of Patrick Painter and Juan Muñoz
6. How I Became a Ramblin’ Man, 1999
edition of 4, with 2 artist’s proofs
video and sound installation, 9 minutes
35mm film transferred to digital videodisc, DVD player,
projector, 2 speakers, AV receiver
Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
7. Aberdeen, 2000
multimedia installation, including slide projection and sound
20 minutes
Collection of the artist
8. Fishing on a Jetty, 2000
edition of 2
two C-prints, framed
each, 8 x 6 feet
overall, 8 feet x 13 feet 5 inches
Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
9. The Bed-Bug, Love Buzz, and Other Short Songs in the
Popular Idiom, 2000
Audio CD
50 minutes
Produced by Dia Center for the Arts and Rodney Graham
|
|
| Selected Bibliography |
|
Rodney Graham: Works from 1976 to 1994. Toronto: Art Gallery of
York University, 1994. Texts by Marie-Ange Brayer, Boris Groys, Matthew Teitelbaum, and Jeff Wall.
Island Thought I, no. 1. Published in association with Canada XLVII Biennale di Venezia. Toronto: Art Gallery of York University 1997. Texts
by William Gibson, Rodney Graham, Robert Linsley, and Shep Steiner.
Rodney Graham: Cinema, Music, Video. Brussels: Yves Gevaert, in
association with Kunsthalle Vienna, 1999. Texts by Alexander Alberro, Michael Glasmeier, Rodney Graham, and Shep Steiner.
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman: Work from 1965 to 1972. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1972. Texts by Jane Livingston and Marcia Tucker.
van Bruggen, Coosje. Bruce Nauman. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.
Bruce Nauman. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, in association with Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1994. Texts by Neal Benezra, Kathy Halbreich, Paul Schimmel, and Robert Storr. Including a catalogue raisonné edited by Joan Simon.
Bruce Nauman: Interviews, 1967–1988. Ed. Christine Hoffmann. Amsterdam: Verlag der Kunst, 1996.
Bruce Nauman: Image/Text, 1966–1996. London: Hayward Gallery, 1998. Texts by François Albera, Michele De Angelus, Christine van Assche, Chris Dercon, Vincent Labaume, Jean-Charles Masséra, Tony Oursler, Christina Ricupero, Willoughby Sharp, Joan Simon, Marcia Tucker, and Gijs van Tuyl.
Bruce Nauman: Versuchsanordnungen, Werke 1965–1994. Hamburg: Kunsthalle, 1998. Texts by Frank Barth, Barbara Engelbach, Melitta Kliege, Günter Metken, Uwe Schneede, Joan Simon, and Friederike Wappler.
|
|
| Biography |
|
Born in 1949 in Masqui, British Columbia, Rodney Graham studied art history
at the University of British Columbia from 1968 to 1971 and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver from 1978 to 1979. Beginning with a series of solo shows in the late 1980s, he has exhibited widely in North America and Europe, including in Documenta IX, 1992, and in the Biennale of Venice, 1997, where he represented Canada. His most recent museum exhibition was held at the Kunstverein Munich in summer 2000. Graham lives and works in Vancouver
Bruce Nauman was born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After studying at the University of Wisconsin from 1964 to 1965, he acquired an MFA from the University of California at Davis in 1966. Following his debut solo show in 1966 at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles, he has exhibited widely in North America and Europe, including in Documenta IV (1968), V (1972), and VII (1982), and in the Whitney Biennales of 1984, 1991, and 1997. In the 1980s, several major large-scale
exhibitions toured, principally in Europe. In 1994–1995, a retrospective was
organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. In 1999, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. Nauman lives and works in New Mexico, where he moved in 1979, developing a professional interest in horse breeding and training.
|
|
| Funding |
|
Funding for this exhibition has been provided by the Lannan Foundation, the Canadian Consolate General, and the members of the Dia Art Council.
|
|
