Dan Graham’s works are deliberately disorientating. Constructed from two-way mirrors, steel and glass, the Illinois-born artist’s freestanding, walk-in pavilions create optical illusions and reflections that play on people’s voyeuristic tendencies, giving viewers elusive glimpses of themselves and others as they step through them. The effect is a little like trying to chase your own shadow.
Part of a series begun in the 1980s, the pavilions and models at London’s Lisson Gallery were inspired by the two-way mirror glass used in office buildings. Graham’s architectural creations are a light-hearted play on the surveillance aspect of the material, as well as on corporate culture.
Based in New York, multi-disciplinary Graham – whose work also includes photography, live performances and video installationa and who has exhibited at everything from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to London’s Tate Modern - often experiments with optics, implementing fish-eye lenses and small pools of water to reflect the interior of his structures. His new body of work extends this trickery on an impressive scale.
