RODNEY GRAHAM
Born in 1949, Vancouver (Canada). Lives and works in Vancouver.
Les Dernieres Merveilles de la science, 1991
Book, steel, glass
Private collection
Rodney Graham has conceived a case in which to keep a copy of the book Les Dernieres Merveilles de la Science, a didactic publication for children characteristic of a scientific and positive idealism from the end of the nineteenth century. The book is fitted between two glass walls and its cover is infinitely reflected in the two mirrors that constitute the unfurled partitions of the case. Between preservation and exhibition, this chest allies bibliophilic fetishism and plagiarism of minimalist sculpture.
At the end of the eighties Rodney Graham conceived chests for different books, such as Nouvelles Impressions d’Afrique by Roussel, Alice in Wonderland by Carroll and the writings of the Belgium physicist Joseph Plateau, works that combine logic and the absurd (Carroll), system and secretiveness (Roussel), and science and belief (Plateau). These works extend the reproductions realised by Graham of different modular structures identical to Donald Judd’s, but used like libraries, accommodating in particular the complete works of Freud.
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