Rodney Graham: That's Not Me

The figure of the artist remains a central subject of investigation for Vancouver artist Rodney Graham (born 1949), who is known for straddling many vocations simultaneously: painter, photographer, writer, philosopher, actor, psychologist, scientist and musician. This new monograph, published for Graham's exhibition at the BALTIC Centre in the UK, gathers works made between 1994 and 2017--in particular his photographic lightboxes and his musical production--that focus on the self-portrait. Graham shows himself starring in various fictional roles (artist, musician, actor, lighthouse keeper, paddler, reader). In her essay, Briony Fer observes that "as much as Graham makes pictures that cohere as mise-en-scenes, and that operate self-reflexively to speculate on the very mechanics of the image, so it is impossible to keep all the allusions in check. There is something enigmatic that we can never entirely satisfactorily trace back to the numerous sources that may or may not be at stake.