Artist Biography
Rodney Graham was born in Abbotsford, Canada, in 1949 and has worked in Vancouver since the 1970s. Conceptual in approach, his interdisciplinary practice incorporates photography, film, video, sound, performance and text-based works. Doubling, repetition and looping are hallmarks of his work, devices he often uses with humour to question the notion of originality and the nature of perception. Graham has exhibited widely throughout North America and Europe and, in 1997, he represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. In 2005 he was the subject of a major survey exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery that toured to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among other venues in North America. Rodney Graham lives in Vancouver where he also has a parallel career as a musician and songwriter. He is represented by Lisson Gallery, London; Donald Young Gallery, Chicago; and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich.
Works
City self/Country self 2000
A reverie interrupted by the police 2003
Artist Statement
My method of working comes out of a lack of technique because I did not come out of painting, sculpture or photography. I even dropped out of studying art history. Conceptual art and the tradition, established by artists like Judd, of having your work fabricated by someone else, made what I am doing possible. All art is about interpolating yourself into a tradition in one way or another.
From an interview conducted by Anthony Spira, curator, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 2002. See www.whitechapel.org
