City of London Rococo

Blurring the line between art and architecture, Dan Graham’s pavilions comprise steel, mirror and glass structures that create diverse optical effects. Created as hybrids, they operate as quasi-functional spaces and art installations. Studies of space and light, they are situated in public spaces and are activated by the presence of the viewer. Rigorously conceptual, uniquely beautiful and avowedly public, the pavilions exhibit a deliberate disorientation and playfulness that Graham encourages. After looking at office buildings in the 1980s he began using the same twoway mirror glass used in their construction to create the pavilions. A material that is both transparent and reflective it enabled Graham to deconstruct the surveillance aspect of the material, creating light-hearted situations out of potentially sinister ones; using humour to subvert corporate culture.

Year: 2012