303 Gallery presents a new film installation by Rodney Graham, “Rheinmetall/Victoria 8”, and several new drawings.
The subject of “Rheinmetall/Victoria 8” is a mid-1930’s German Rheinmetall model typewriter. Graham found this typewriter in pristine condition in a junk shop in Vancouver. It was as if not one key had ever been used. In the beginning of the film the case covering the typewriter disappears and the typewriter is steadily and deliberately examined from several vantage points. During the course of the film a gentle white powder falls, lightly at first, and then more heavily until the object is nearly buried. This development loops, creating a cycle that refers to the passing and sequence of time, which is an important reoccurring structure in Graham’s work.
The enormous1950’s Italian made Cinemeccanica projector, a model Victoria 8, generates the larger than life projection of the Rheinmetall typewriter. The presence of the projector and the projection in the same room adds a mechanical sound track to the ‘silent’ work further emphasizing the pairing of two obsolete communication technologies.
Rodney Graham has a retrospective exhibition titled “a little thought” that opened March 30th at The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada, and will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA, and the Vancouver Art Gallery , Canada. In 2002 Graham had a one person exhibition that began at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England, and traveled to K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfale, Dusseldorf, Germany and The Galeries Coontemporaines de Musees de Marseille, France. That same year Graham had an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Zurich in Switzerland. Rodney Graham was also included in the “Utopia Station” exhibition at the 2003 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, and in the Biennale D’Art Contemporain De Lyon 2003, Lyon, France.