I SEE YOU, YOu, You, you...

Dan Graham inside Girl’s Make-up Room

Can you beleieve that Dan Graham, one of contemporary arts most innovative and influential figures, is in no American museum collections? Graham got some much-deserved recognition last night at The Whitney when they unveiled Dan Graham: BEYOND, curated by Chrissie Isles and Bennett Simpson. A retrospective of Graham's groundbreaking work in film, video, photography, installation, performance, sculpture and musical collaborations dating from the mid–60's to present fills the entire fourth floor. Guests weaved in and out of architectural-scale glass pavilions that filled the main gallery, turning it into a playground for paranoid adults. Quite a few of the ladies were in and out of Girl's Make-up Room, 1998-2000, a curved, semi-circular stainless steel mesh and two-way mirror glass pavilion complete with a mirror wand and a vanity table with a selection of red lipsticks to try on. On the flipside of the space, people crammed in to view Graham's seminal Body Press, 1970–1972, a dizzying 16mm film in which Graham obliterates the idea of the supposed objectivity of the camera by handing the device to actors, who performed simple movements like circling one another. By closing time no one knew if they were coming or going.

by Mary Barone