Rodney Graham

at Donald Young Gallery

Time Out Chicago / Issue 192 : Oct 30–Nov 5, 2008

You’ll need to bring a friend to Rodney Graham’s show to activate the Rotary Psycho-Opticon. When someone pedals the attached bicycle, the spotted, starred and swirling contraption spins its circles like a hypno-disc. Yet you may be underwhelmed by the Opticon’s “psycho” impact—or lack thereof.

The Canadian artist copied the black-and-white sculpture from the set of Black Sabbath’s 1970 performance on Belgian television, but we couldn’t find a significant connection to the band. The tension between the Opticon’s high-contrast black-and-white lines and shapes instead evokes Op Art, the 1960s painting movement that used these elements to create the illusion of movement and depth. As the Opticon spins, you expect your eye to be tricked—but you’re more likely to be seduced by the nearby large-scale photograph Dance!!!, a hyperrealistic
scene from an Old West saloon. Graham contrasts viewers’ assumptions that the Opticon is an illusion with their willingness to accept Dance!!! as a true depiction of three-dimensional space.

In the other gallery, Graham creates dozens of variations on an abstract drawing, questioning the authenticity of the original image. He also presents several oil paintings that fulfill every stereotype of mid-20th-century abstraction with interchangeable expressive brushstrokes, random splotches of color and indistinct shapes. These series humorously reveal artistic quality as something viewers project onto work. But the main gallery’s competing optical illusions—one so low-tech that it highlights the other’s slickness—present more timely ideas
about our eyes’ tendency to take our daily onslaught of visual information for granted.

-CW