Dan Graham
Two Way Mirror /
Hedge Arabesque
From May 31, 2014
Opening: Saturday, May 31, 2:30pm
Valley of Rhododendrons (Oasi Zegna)
Provincial Road n.232
13835 Trivero (BI)
Italy
Lecture: Thursday, May 29, 5pm
Salone d’Onore, Triennale
Viale Alemagna 6
Milan
Italy
www.fondazionezegna.org/allaperto
ALL’APERTO, the public art project of Fondazione Zegna curated by Andrea Zegna and Barbara Casavecchia, celebrates its sixth edition with two joint events.
Dan Graham will discuss his work for ALL’APERTO during a public Lecture at Triennale, in Milan, on May 29 in conversation with the curators and Joseph Grima.
Two Way Mirror / Hedge Arabesque (2014), a new permanent site-specific work by Graham, will be inaugurated in Trivero (Biella, Italy) on May 31 in the presence of the artist.
Two Way Mirror / Hedge Arabesque is a free-standing outdoor pavilion in steel and glass, dissected by a high hedge in yew. The two-way mirror has a unique optical property: one side is transparent, the other reflects light. By adopting curvilinear profiles and assembling the plates so as to multiply refractions and overlapping images, Graham subverts the mechanisms of visibility/invisibility associated with this material, often used for the facades of corporate buildings. Inside his pavilions, visitors are captivated by a kaleidoscopic game of mirrors and self-reflections. “My work is always about how viewers see themselves,” says Graham.
The pavilion is located in the Valley of Rhododendrons of Oasi Zegna, renowned for its spectacular spring bloom: a scenario both natural and artificial, as created and redesigned by two masters of Italian landscape architecture, Piero Porcinai and Paolo Pejrone. The choice of this location relates to Graham’s longstanding interest in landscape architecture, as public manifestation of the interactions between art, architecture, environment and audience.
His first pavilions, created in the eighties, like Two Adjacent Pavilions (1982, documenta VII, Kassel) were the result of the artist’s studies on historic gardens. Octagon for Münster (1987, Skulptur Projekte, Münster) recreated the volumes of an ancient gazebo, by reflecting the idyllic scenery of the city park. In the essay “Garden as Theater as Museum” (1988), Graham interprets the Renaissance gardens as the first museums of Western history. With works such as Two-Way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth (1994-6, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA), the artist cites the Baroque hedge mazes, as well as the usage of the hedge as device that delineates private territories in the residential architecture of the suburbs—another major theme for Graham’s research. Until November 2, the artist presents Hedge Two Way Mirror / Hedge Arabesque (2014) a new pavilion for the Roof Garden Commission of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in collaboration with the Swiss landscape architect Günther Vogt.
The catalogue will be published and distributed by Mousse, with texts by Anna Zegna, Andrea Zegna and a conversation between Dan Graham, Barbara Casavecchia and Joseph Grima (former Domus editor and cofounder of the design research collaborative Spacecaviar).
Dan Graham was born in Urbana, Illinois, USA, in 1942. He lives and works in New York. Currently, the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, the Netherlands, is hosting a Graham’s retrospective titled Models and Beyond. In 2009, Beyond, a major retrospective, toured from the MOCA in Los Angeles, to the Whitney Museum in New York and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In 2001–2, Dan Graham, Works 1965 – 2000 was hosted by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, Kröller – Müller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, and Kiasma in Helsinki. Graham has participated in numerous biennials of Venice (1976, 2003, 2004, 2005), documenta V, VI , VII, IX , IX and X in Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, 1992 and 1997), and the Sculpture Project in Münster (1987, 1997).
ALL’APERTO is an initiative of Fondazione Zegna, a non-profit institution that since 2000 supports cultural, social, medical and environmental projects for communities in different parts of the world. ALL’APERTO develops in Trivero (BI) a series of site-specific permanent artworks, relating to the territory and its inhabitants. Previous editions involved Daniel Buren (2008), Alberto Garutti (2009), Stefano Arienti (2011), Roman Signer (2012), and Marcello Maloberti (2013).
ALL’APERTO is under the patronage of the Municipality of Trivero and the Region of Piedmont.
Press contacts:
ALL’APERTO
press office, adicorbetta
T +39 02 89053149 / stampa [at] adicorbetta.org
international press office, Pickles PR
T +31 615821202 / rhiannon [at] picklespr.com
Fondazione Zegna
press office: Federico Amato
T +39 0289077394 / federico.amato [at] efficere.it
