I don’t get it up on demand.
So when I saw Dan Graham: Beyond, my response to the critical question of "so what?" was "oh yeah--I'm a voyeur!" But not with the tone of voice of one who is experiencing a revelation: More so with the timbre of appropriate facetiousness that should coat such an exclamation uttered by anyone alive right now.
Not to be down on Dan Graham though. I just was not feeling his art. And that's a personal (state's rights) issue in Art, right?
Some of his work:
In addition to this semi-creeptastic, audience-involved installation, there was a video of a naked man and a naked woman who passed two cameras between each other, the results projected on opposite walls in a small square room:
I can not find a picture of my favorite of his work. But involves a naked man and naked woman. A camera, focused on the woman is fed into a tv which she studies and describes herself as she sees herself. The man stands on a chair and describes aloud what he sees when he looks at the woman. The scenario is played out in front of an audience.
I like this because it is a means of shifting the gender roles a little bit: the woman describes her self according to what is on the screen, but the man, in describing what he thinks about the woman has his subjective mind on display for everyone to judge: he is on the pedestal. The woman is a part of the whole, a part of the crowd, a part of the majority, the ruling class. The man is singled out and feels the burden of judgment on his naked body and his naked recitation of his thoughts about woman. Again, this is not a total switch of gender roles as such a thing does not exist, but it definitely changes one's existence for the time being....but then again, only if you are the naked man or naked woman. "...And that brings us back to do": we're only voyeurs as audience members.
thank you
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