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Rodney Graham and Bruce Nauman: "...the Nearest Faraway Place..." at Dia Center for the Arts

May 10, 2000-June 17, 2001

"...the nearest faraway place..." will present a closely focused group of works by Rodney Graham and Bruce Nauman. This exhibition at Dia Center for the Arts, 548 West 22nd Street, will be on view through June 18, 2000, and then will reopen on September 13, 2000 through spring 2001.

In cinema, the classic Western assumed an epic character. Subsequently subject to decades of relentless appropriation by high and low culture alike, this thematic has recently sparked fresh and unexpected responses from Nauman and Graham,responses that range from the dead-pan to the disarmingly irreverent. Assembling new and recent works that reflect the artists' mutual interest in this enduring myth and its mutant off-shoots, "...the nearest faraway place..." explores a seminal icon in the North American imaginary.

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 Kunsthalle Vienna in Summer 1999. Graham lives and works in Vancouver. Another body of work by Rodney Graham related to the notion of the camera obscura is currently on view at Dia in the exhibition Time Traced.

Bruce Nauman is one of the leading artists of our time. Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Nauman received a master's degree in fine arts from the University of California, Davis, and in the late sixties began exhibiting his work internationally. In 1972 a retrospective of his work was organized by The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and over the last three decades he has had numerous solo exhibitions at major museums in the United States and Europe. A more recent retrospective exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, in 1994, traveled to other museums in Europe and the United States. Nauman currently lives and works in New Mexico.

Support for this project has been provided by the Canadian Consulate General and the members of the Dia Art Council.

Dia Center for the Arts is a tax-exempt charitable organization. Established in 1974, the organization has become one of the largest in the United States dedicated to contemporary art and contemporary culture. In fulfilling this commitment, Dia sustains diverse programming in visual arts, poetry, education, and critical discourse and debate.

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