Two Half Cylinders, 2008

Dan Graham (American, 1942)

Born in Urbana, Illinois, USA, Graham now lives and works in New York City, USA. Graham is best known for his work as a Conceptual artist working with film, photography, printed matter, architectural installations, and critical writing. Graham has a history of connections to Canadian arts and culture, having taught and worked at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the 1970's. He is known for his influence on Vancouver's Photo-conceptualists and has developed long time friendships with many Vancouver artists. A self-educated artist, Graham received no formal education past high school. In 1965 he started the John Daniels Gallery, exhibiting then emerging artists, later to become art historical legends of the Minimalist and Land and Environmental Art movements, including Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson, and Donald Judd, who in turn influenced Graham.

Graham's extensive exhibition history includes numerous solo and group exhibitions, having exhibited at Museum of Modern Art New York, Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum of Contemporary Art Lisbon, Kunsthalle Bern, Witte de With, as well as inclusion in several editions of Documenta. In 2009 the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles organized the first U.S. retrospective of Graham's work, which traveled to the Whitney Museum. Since the late 1970s, Graham's work has included an extensive production of pavilions, found in both public and private settings in North and South America, Asia, and Europe.

Two Half Cylinders, 2008
Two-way mirror glass and steel, hedge,
88 inches high x 348 inches diameter (223.5 cm high x 883.9 cm diameter)

In 2009, Two Half Cylinders (2008) was permanently installed in the rooftop sculpture garden for Rennie Collection at Wing Sang in Vancouver, British Columbia and is the first of its kind to be permanently installed in Canada. Pavilions are often made as free standing structures used for pleasure, relaxation and as sites of contemplation. Two Half Cylinders is constructed out of two-way mirror glass and steel and another made out of planted, growing hedges. The glass and hedge curves are placed slightly offset from each other to form an opening in the structure where viewers are encouraged to enter and experience the work. The participatory aspect of this work allows viewers to become performers. When moving around the work one's vision becomes re-constructed as the two-way mirror reflects and distorts the surrounding images into a disoriented pastiche of city, sky, people, and nature.