Rodney Graham
dal 28/1/2010 al 17/5/2010
Segnalato da
28/1/2010
Rodney Graham
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA, Barcelona
Through the Wood. This exhibition brings together a hundred or so works by the Canadian artist done between 1978 and 2008 and taken from public and private collections in Europe and North America. Graham uses different supports (books, video, sculpture, device-machines, painting, photography, installation, printed material and music) to produce works that defy authority and some key concepts of the history of contemporary art, and play with perception.
Curated by Friedrich Meschede
This exhibition brings together a hundred or so works by the Canadian artist Rodney
Graham done between 1978 and 2008 and taken from public and private collections in
Europe and North America. Graham uses different supports (books, video, sculpture,
device-machines, painting, photography, installation, printed material and music) to
produce works that defy authority and some key concepts of the history of
contemporary art, and play with perception.
Graham’s work has a pronounced cerebral character and often includes art history and
intellectual references from the time of the Enlightenment to the present day. His use of
appropriation techniques enables him to pay tribute to some of the masters of the arts,
literature, philosophy or pop music. Moreover, he makes use of a respectful irony to
desacralise their unquestionable influence and suggest a new way of seeing them.
From Sigmund Freud to Donald Judd (in direct confrontation in some pieces), from
Edgar Allan Poe to Georg Büchner, from Jeff Wall to Pablo Picasso, they all provide
the material or conceptual reference for many of Graham’s pieces.
Cyclical repetition, multiple reflection and spiral deviation are recurring elements in his
work, and conjure up altered states of perception or a pendular movement from
wakefulness to unconsciousness, from reality to fiction, from nature to culture, from
light to shadow.
An outstanding element of the exhibition is a major compilation of books and
sculptures, installations and machines based on books of Graham’s that come from a
peculiar library that shows his interpolations, appendices, bookmarks, reading and
exhibition devices in the style of Judd, among other pieces. The exhibition also
includes the series of 21 pictures Picasso, My Master (2005), his first incursion into
painting, which reconstructs the aura of mastery that surrounds Picasso’s work with a
touch of humour.
The catalogue published on the occasion of this exhibition includes texts by Friedrich
Meschede, Julian Heynen and Christa-Maria Lerm-Hayes and Yves Gevaert. The
design is by Filiep Tacq.
A small part of the exhibition can be seen at the Museo Picasso in Barcelona.
Meschede. Exhibition organised by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), a
coproduction with the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, and Hamburger Kunsthalle,
Hamburg.
Image: Rheinmetall / Victoria 8, 2003
Press Contact
Head: Inés Martínez Ribas
Assistants: Mireia Collado, Victòria Cortés Tel: +34 93 4813356 Fax: +34 93 4124602 e-mail: press@macba.cat
Opening: Friday 29 January 2010
MACBA
Plaça dels Angels, 1 - 08001 Barcelona
Weekdays: 11 am to 7.30 pm
Saturdays: 10 am to 8 pm
Sundays and holidays: 10 am to 3 pm
Closed: Tuesdays (except holidays), December 25th and January 1st
All Museum access:
Normal 7,5 €
Reduced 6 €
Temporary exhibition:
Normal 6 €
Reduced 4,50 €
The ticket counter closes 30 minutes before the Museum.