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Dan Graham, Conceptual Artist, Dies at 79

2022-02-20T21:29:00-05:00

My passion has never been art. It’s always been architecture, tourism, rock and roll, and rock and roll writing.

Dan Graham, an unclassifiable artist whose sculptures, performances, and conceptual pieces played on viewers’ perception of themselves, the people around them, and their environments, has died at 79. His four galleries—Lisson Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery, 303 Gallery, and Regen Projects—said in a statement that he passed away this weekend in New York. A cause of death was not announced.

His output was vast and varied. It spanned monumental glass sculptures and small-scaled text pieces, tricky performances about surveillance, and razor-sharp videos about rock ‘n’ roll.

Dan Graham was born in Urbana, Illinois, on March 31, 1942, and brought up in Winfield, New Jersey. (He was an Aries, and often made sure to mention that in interviews.) His mother was an educational psychologist whose field of work instilled an interest in humans’ understanding of space early on. Graham never received a formal education after high school, though he had a tendency to act like a sponge, soaking up theo...

Dan Graham hates conceptual art

2016-08-08T06:44:00-04:00

Dan Graham points his finger at conceptual art as it practiced today and taught in schools. Makes a lot of sense when it is overused and over-appropriated meaninglessly and endlessly. I don't think he would say that forty years ago. Though, he spares Lawrence Weiner.

Exclusive: Graham Foundation announces winners of 2015 Grants to Organizations

2015-08-11T09:01:00-04:00

From Kiev to Los Angeles, from mind-bending artist Dan Graham to stately architect Kevin Roche, the Graham Foundation has announced the 49 international winners of its 2015 Grants to Organizations. Each year, the Foundation gives out two sets of grants: one for individuals including architects, writers, and artists, and one specifically for organizations, such as museums, universities, publishers, and trusts. The grant categories include film, exhibitions, public programs, and publications. This year, $496,500 was awarded to 49 winners from a competitive pool of 200 entries featuring both emerging and established organizations.

In keeping with the Graham Foundation's mission to foster innovative explorations of architecture and art, the winning projects encompass a variety of perceptual and investigative terrain, from the MoMA's exploratory exhibition on Toyo Ito, SANAA and other Japanese architectural firms, to the creation of several new projects for this fall's Chicago Architectur...

Stars of Dan Graham

2011-07-02T07:02:02-04:00

With a cultivated sense of aesthetic, both Bruno Taut and Gordon Bunshaft, although incredibly different architects, possess the Taurus loves of color and jewel-like form and structure

Ever so analytical artist Dan Graham explains well known architects via their astrological signs. Paired with writer Jessica Russell, Graham attributes architects' work to their horoscopic characteristics in an uncanny precision and earthly observations. Their telescope gazes, Robert Venturi for Cancer, Pisces for Frank Gehry, Aries explains Mies and Terragni, Taurus is at home with Bruno Taut and Gordon Bunshaft, chronically dysfunctional Louis Kahn in Aquarius and Gemini persona of Frank Lloyd Wright.