LINCOLN, MA.- DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum announces the acquisition of Dan Graham’s Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances. This is the fourth in a series of major acquisitions made possible by the Hamilton R. James Sculpture Park Acquisition Fund in an effort to strengthen the Park’s collection of contemporary sculpture. The fund previously supported the purchase of Antony Gormley’s Reflection II, Rona Pondick’s Otter, and Ursula von Rydingsvard’s Elegantka. The acquisition of Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances moves deCordova closer to its goal of becoming the leading Sculpture Park in the United States by 2020.
Nick Capasso, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs says, “The acquisition of Dan Graham’s Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances is of immense importance to our Permanent Collection of outdoor sculpture. To date, most of these works are art historically significant abstract or figurative sculptures. Crazy Spheroid rounds out this collection with a sculpture informed by architecture, a vital current in contemporary art. The artwork is also a social sculpture, meant to be participatory and to engage visitors with one other as they experience the art, the landscape, and each other simultaneously.”
Dan Graham’s fifty-year-long artistic practice is diverse and innovative, crisscrossing philosophy and popular culture. Graham has worked with Conceptualism and Minimalism, video and performance art, architectural sculpture, and the culture of rock and roll. Through all of these explorations, he has maintained a focus on the changing relationship of individual to society, as filtered through American mass media and architecture.
Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances is a half-ellipse constructed of two-way mirror glass and steel structural supports. Its interior is unequally divided into two chambers. The reflective pavilion is a combination of sculpture, architecture, and performance art. Doorway sized openings invite participants to enter the structure and to interact and engage with the piece. Viewers are reflected into the work of art—they may observe their own movements and surrounding figures. The surrounding architecture, sky, and landscape are also reflected into the work, creating a complex remixing of light, distorted figures, trees, and buildings. The reflective structure disrupts the viewers’ normal perception and fosters a new relationship between the participant’s body and the outside world. Graham has worked extensively on pavilions for the last 30 years, which have been sited all over the world.
Dan Graham, Crazy Spheroid: Two Entrances, 2009, 2-way mirror glass, stainless steel, 86 5/8” x 221 5/8” x 131 5/8,” Museum Purchase, Hamilton R. James Sculpture Park Acquisition Fund. Installation support provided by The Boeckman Family Foundation.
Cronin Lecture
On Thursday, October 27 at 6:30pm deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum will welcome Dan Graham as the guest speaker for the Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture at the Tower Auditorium at MassArt. This talk is made possible by a generous grant to deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum from the Grover J. Cronin Memorial Foundation, and is co-presented with MassArt. All attendees will receive a free pass to visit deCordova. The Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lectures were established in 1981 to consider topics that are broadly focused upon changing attitudes towards twentieth and twentyfirst century art.
About the Artist
Graham was director of the short-lived John Daniels Gallery in New York City from 1964 to 1965, where he showed such Minimalist artists as Carl André, Sol LeWitt, and Donald Judd. From 1965 to 1969 he produced a series of text and image magazine spreads. In the 1970s, he worked on performance and video projects focusing on the performer and viewer’s gazes. His performances often included mirrored walls, video cameras and sound elements. In 1976 he moved beyond creating performances to constructing environments where viewers became both performers and observers. His 1976 pavilion for the Venice Biennale, Public Space/Two Audiences, was placed inside a gallery, disrupting the traditional viewing format of the modern, white-cube gallery. Soon, with the help of architects, he began creating independently standing architectural structures like Crazy Spheroid – Two Entrances—semi-reflective glass structures with a simple, minimal form.
Graham’s 2009 retrospective traveled from The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, and the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN. Graham has exhibited internationally in four Documenta exhibitions in Kassel, Germany (1972, 1977, 1982 and 1992), three Venice Biennials in Venice, Italy (1976, 2003, 2005), and in solo shows and mid-career retrospectives at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, Japan; and Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal.
