Saturday, November 1, 2014

Dan Graham at Greene Naftali

Dan Graham at Greene Naftali

The banal-sinister that Graham early perfected still looking fresh despite its omni-influence over several generations as market diverse as Liam Gillick to Sam Pulitzer. A proto "relational" project whose difference was Graham’s work belied the corporate-style insidiousness of its MET rooftop friendliness, that Graham has always been, if not indifferent, at least analytically impersonal towards his subject matter, texts elucidating all the problems of its fun, punk, of the videos so comfortably viewed here, instead of letting its proponents speak for it, giving texts like “Punk as Propaganda” or “Rock my Religion” becoming a trope in its own right, in which opaque installations promote the texts that come with it.
The strangest of the whole thing is how similar Greene Naftali newly all in glass has begun to look like the corporate-pastiche of the art it houses.