Dan Graham: Advice to the Young

“Don’t make art as a career,” says award-winning American artist Dan Graham. “Because that means you’re just doing the same boring things that you reacted against in the beginning.”

In this short interview Dan Graham offers advice to younger artists by tallying up the best and worst things about art schools: visiting many different artists, going on class excursions and having access to books are all important opportunities for the young artist. Also art schools might give access to technical schools so you can earn a living. The worst? “Trying to make art theoretical and misuse of the word ‘problematize’,” says Graham with a tongue-in-cheek poke at the contemporary art world. Furthermore Dan Graham advises young artists to go and experience great art in museums.

Dan Graham (b. 1942) is an award-winning American conceptual artist whose work spans across curating, writing, performance, installation, video, photography and architecture. He is perhaps most known for his pavilions, which he has designed since the late 1970s and which have been realized across the world. His work has been shown at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, Musée d’art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, France, Kiasma Museum, Helsinki, Finland and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. Graham’s works are also shown numerous times at prestigious events such as dOCUMENTA in Kassel, Germany and at the Venice Biennale, in Italy.

Dan Graham was interviewed by Christian Lund in his home in SoHo, New York, October 2015.

Camera: Pierce Jackson
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2016

Supported by Nordea-fonden

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