Dan Graham, 1942–2022

The phrase "unclassifiable" is found in the news of Graham's death at ARTnews, which further describes him as an artist "whose sculptures, performances, and conceptual pieces played on viewers’ perception of themselves, the people around them, and their environments." Instead of labeling himself an artist, the article continues, "he considered himself an architect or a writer above all else." 

The February 19 announcement of Graham's death at Lisson Gallery (one of four galleries representing the artist that released the statement) states that "the main focus of Graham’s art since the late 1970s was an ongoing series of public architectural installations, which he called pavilions, derived from geometric forms and rendered in plate glass, two-way mirror, and steel armatures." 

The glass pavilions were what made Graham so appealing to architects, given their spatial, immersive character and the way they used an architectural material — glass — to comment directly upon buildings and cities, particularly of the late-modern variety. This writer first encountered one of Graham's pavilions in early 2004 on the rooftop of the Dia Foundation in New York: the Rooftop Urban Park Project was on display from 1991 until just a week after my visit, when Dia closed its Chelsea location (it reopened in Chelsea in 2021 but sans Graham pavilion). Graham wrote of the installation that was clearly inspired by the adjacent water tower: "My two-way mirror pavilions can be seen as microcosms of the city environment as a whole."

Graham's architectural affinities are also evident in some of the venues for his exhibitions. His Exhibition of Environmental Aesthetic in 1986 was the inaugural exhibition in the Storefront for Art and Architecture's new space on Kenmare Street, designed by Steven Holl and Vito Acconci. It featured three works that "incorporated reflective mirror, and opaque and transparent surfaces to create new patterns of visibility and perception."

A decade later, in 1997, Graham exhibited Architecture, a two-part exhibition at the Camden Art Centre and the Architectural Association, both in London. The former displayed three pavilions in its galleries, while the latter presented Graham's architectural models and drawings as well as a newly commissioned "pergola" conservatory. A companion catalog, Dan Graham: Architecture, compiled about a dozen pavilions, from the late 1970s to the Star of David Pavilion installed in 1996 at Buchberg Castle in Kamp, Austria.

Dan Graham was born on March 31, 1942, in Urbana, Illinois, but was raised in Winfield, New Jersey. The area's tract houses inspired him to create Homes for America, which ran in Arts magazine in late 1966/early 1967 and is considered "his first important piece." Graham branched out from conceptual text pieces like Homes for America to produce multifaceted performances, videos, and installations. These led to the pavilions, such as the early Two Adjacent Pavilions, shown at Documenta 7 in Kassell in 1982 and now sited at the Kröller-Müller Museum.

Graham died in New York City the weekend of February 19, 2022. He is survived by his wife, artist Mieko Meguro.