Dan Graham, Two Housing Projects, New York, N.Y., 1966. Digital c-print, image: 8 x 14 inches, 20.3 x 35.6; sheet: 20 x 30 inches, 50.8 x 76.2 cm. AP from alongside an Edition of 15. Signed and numbered.

As an early example of Dan Graham’s photographic work, “Two Housing Projects, New York, NY” could be seen as representative of what would become a long-term preoccupation with architecture and the city plan. The influence of minimal artists such as Donald Judd is readily apparent in the verticality of the image, as well as the “stacking” of the sets of balconies on both sides of the picture. Taken during the same period as the “Homes for America” photographs as well as text pieces such as Schema, both intended for magazine distribution, Graham’s initial interest in the medium of photography came partly out of a reluctance to accept the sequestering of art within the gallery system, whose “containers” had been highlighted by minimal art’s emphasis on the materiality of the art object. As part of a larger discursive practice that stretches across writing, performance, video, models and pavilions, Graham’s photographs could be seen as visual “think pieces” within a medium that offers immediate responses to elements of the built environment that are symptomatic of his line of thought, and have proven highly influential on younger generations of artists who have taken up the problem of art’s relationship to architecture.

The artist is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

“Dan Graham: Beyond comes to the Walker October 31, 2009 - January 24, 2010 following presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (February 15 - May 25, 2009) and New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art (June 25 - October 11, 2009). One of contemporary art's most innovative figures, Dan Graham has been at the forefront of numerous artistic developments since the 1960s, from the rise of conceptualism and minimalism to video and performance to explorations of architecture and the culture of rock and roll. His rejection of the high-seriousness of modern art emerged at the same moment as Pop art, and the fluid, democratic quality of his work continues to exert a powerful influence on younger generations.

This ground-breaking retrospective, the first in the U.S., showcases Graham’s expansive body of work—including his innovations with video and performance, glass-and-mirror pavilions that play off architecture and public spaces, and magazine projects, as well as media installations, prints, drawings, photographs, and writing. In tracing the evolution of Graham’s work across its major stages, the exhibition highlights persistent underlying motifs and concerns—most notably, the changing relationship of individual to society, as filtered through American mass media and architecture." [Walker Museum]