21 May 2013
Take a silver-haired chemistry professor in a white coat. A laboratory. A day at the end of term. A cactus as a gift. Add a few colored balloons and a sheet of canary yellow paper. A virus in the ganglia of everyday banality, Cactus Fan is one of the new works by Rodney Graham on show at the Lisson Gallery in London. An image, a puzzle with a clue. The declared reference takes us straight to a humorous painting by the German artist Carl Spitzweg: The Cacti Aficionado (1865). Plant and professor bent in the same curve, the same green color for both, compassionate empathy. Graham metabolizes it, mulling over the late romantic idea of the love of science. The same fierce mockery with which he has already hybridized Lewis Carroll and Kurt Cobain, Sigmund Freud and Ian Fleming. The proportion is always 1 to 1. The professor is scowling. The cactus, it seems, is prickly.
Rodney Graham
Lisson Gallery
London
17 maggio > 29 giugno 2013
Rodney Graham, Cactus Fan, 2013. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, Pipe Cleaner Artist, Amalfi, ’61, 2013. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, Smoke Break 2 (Drywaller), 2012. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, Old Punk on Pay Phone, 2012. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, Betula Pendula ‘Fastigiata’ (Sous-Chef on Smoke-Break), 2011. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, The Avid Reader 1949, 2011. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.
Rodney Graham, Paddler, Mouth of the Seymour, 2012-13. Courtesy: Rodney Graham e/and Lisson Gallery.