Publication

  • Dan Graham & The Static
    Primary Information, 2016
  • GRANTEE
    Primary Information
    GRANT YEAR
    2015

Dan Graham/The Static, photographs of performances by Dan Graham and the Static at Riverside Studios, 1979, London, UK. Photos: Nicholas Alderton.

This project presents a unique performance of Dan Graham's formative artwork Performance/Audience/Mirror, his exploration into the relationship between space, audience, and performer through use of simple instructions, monologue, and a wall-sized mirror. It is a facsimile reproduction of a cassette originally produced by Audio Arts. It contains two tracks: a 39-minute recording of Graham performing in the installation, and a 41-minute, live recording of the No Wave band, the Static (Glenn Branca, Barbara Ess, Christine Hahn), performing inside Graham's sculptural installation. The combination of and contrast between these two performances highlight the intersections occurring at the time between visual art, performance, and music, which remain influential today. Through this facsimile, a new audience will be able to experience Graham's thoughts about performance, architecture, and music. This cassette will be printed in an edition of 500, and will be made available for free online through Primary Information's website.

Dan Graham is an artist, writer, and curator based in New York. Graham's work is represented in the collections of numerous major institutions, including Moderna Museet, Centre Pompidou, and the Tate Gallery. He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Castello di Rivoli; the Museo d' Arte Contemporanea (Italy); the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Walker Art Center; the Van Abbemuseum (Holland); the Museum of Modern Art (England); the Renaissance Society (Chicago); the Kunsthalle (Switzerland); and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; and has been represented internationally in group exhibitions at Documenta 7 (Germany), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MoMA PS 1, the Marian Goodman Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions.

Glenn Branca is an avant-garde composer and guitarist based in New York. His work has included music for bands, large ensemble instrumentals for electric guitars, symphonies for electric instrumentation and acoustic orchestras, chamber ensemble pieces, an opera, a ballet, choral works, and music for film, dance, theater, and installation. Fourteen albums of his music have been released as well as works included in numerous compilations. Branca has received major awards for music composition from CAPS, the National Endowment for the Arts, DAAD Berlin (fellowship), the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Barbara Ess (born 1948) is an artist and musician based in New York. She has had one-woman shows at the High Museum of Art, Moore College, Curt Marcus Gallery, Faggionato Fine Arts, and Fundacion la Caixa, as well as at galleries in Madrid, Los Angeles, Paris, Antwerp, Cologne, and Washington. In 1993, the Queens Museum curated the traveling exhibition Barbara Ess: Photography, Installation, and Books. In addition to the Static, she performed with Y Pants and edited Just Another Asshole, an arts and music publication in the early 1980s.

Christine Hahn is an artist based in Maryland. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Hamburg Bahnhof Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other venues. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art Vienna, the Van Abbemuseum, and Hamburg Kunsthalle. In addition to serving as a drummer for the Static, she also formed a band with Kim Gordon and performed with Martin Kippenberger.

Primary Information was formed in 2006 as a non-profit organization specializing in the publication of both out-of print and new artists' books and magazines. Primary Information views the book as a unique exhibition space, able to reach audiences who would normally not have easy access to contemporary art. By focusing on the archival and contemporary, Primary Information seeks to foster intergenerational dialogue between artists and audiences.