Dan Graham, Two-Way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth (1994-96)

  • Designer: Dan Graham
  • Location: Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, part of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
  • Date: constructed 1994-1996
  • Size: 7.5 x 17.15 x 42.3 feet
  • Materials: stainless steel, glass, arborvitae

“Relating both to landscape and corporate architecture, Graham’s pavilions sometimes create a kaleidoscopic, psychedelic experience relating to “child’s play,” recreating apparatuses for children in a playground setting. Graham says, “my use of two-way mirror glass in pavilions is not a critique of the alienation of the corporate building; in many ways the work I do tries to create a kind of pleasure area in relationship to the corporate office building, or to use Foucault’s notion, my wish being to create a kind of ‘heterotopia.'”

Dan Graham (1942-2022) was born in Urbana, Illinois and grew up in New Jersey. Since the 1960s, Graham’s work has explored the meeting between architecture, pop culture, and our built environment. Celebrated for his glass and mirror pavilions, Graham also considers himself a writer-artist paramount to his practice. His work incorporates criticism, photography, video, performance art, as well as influences from music and magazine pages. … One of the most important quasi-functional works that Graham [did] was a design for the mezzanine section of the Hayward Gallery in London, involving displays of classic and contemporary cartoons for children and adults of all ages. ” [credit]