Performance and Stage-Set Utilizing Two-Way Mirror and Video Time Delay
Dan Graham
Performance and Stage-Set Utilizing Two-Way Mirror and Video Time Delay, 1983
Documentation of the performance together with Glen Branca at the Kunsthalle Bern Video, black and white, sound, 45 min 45 sec
GF0001915.00.0-2000
Artwork text
A restructuring of the gaze informs this installation/performance work, produced and performed by Graham and musician Glenn Branca for Graham’s 1983 retrospective exhibition “Pavilions” at the Kunsthalle in Berne, Switzerland. The audience was seated on the right and the musicians on the left, therefore facing (and observing each other through) a large two-way mirror. A video screen seen through the two-way mirror showed a six-second, time-delayed view of the room. Graham writes, “Conventionally, the audience identifies with the performer by gazing directly at his/her frontal, eye view. In this set-up the audience must look through the mirror in order to see the performer playing his/her instrument. At the same time a member of the audience sees other audience members (including himself) gazing.” (Electronic Arts Intermix)