Canadian artist Rodney Graham strolls in his works through the landscape of Modernism. On his meandering itinerary through photography, literature, music, art, film, psychology, and linguistics, we encounter Richard Wagner, Stéphane Mallarmé, Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud, and Donald Judd - not to mention the prevalent myths of cinema and popular music. The contradictions engendered thereby - between conceptual gravity and humorous play, reverential homage and scenarized self-presentation, cultural readymades and a sense of connectedness to nature - betray the profile of a contemporary melancholic. Now for the first time, Dorothea Zwirner's introduction to Rodney Graham's complete works - including a representative selection of works with artist's commentary - offers a broad monographic overview.

Dorothea Zwirner, geb. 1965, studierte Kunstgeschichte in Köln. Sie promovierte über Marcel Broodthaers. Seit 1990 ist sie als freie Kuratorin und Autorin mit zahlreichen Publikationen zur zeitgenössischen Kunst tätig. Sie ist verantwortlich für die Herausgabe der Künstlermonographien der Friedrich Christian Flick Collection.