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I visited The Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art to see the work of Rodney Graham: That's Not Me. Graham is one of the most consistently inventive and influential artists to have emerged in the last forty years, thrilling and confounding audiences in exhibitions throughout the world, with great wit and intelligence. Graham questions what it means to be an artist today.
A 'shape shifter', Graham's diverse practice shows the artist take a central role in his work by inhabiting a succession of characters in many different guises. Casting himself as a painter, photographer, sculpture, actor and many other different roles. Graham's photographic lightbox works, several on a monumental scale are presented on the walls within the exhibition at The Baltic. These striking, complex, staged images document suspended moments in time and mostly involve a lone Graham in the role of a character observed or taken from history.
In this exhibition, Graham includes the quartet of works The Four Seasons 2011-2013 which is truly breath-taking, the photographic image brilliantly lit personally took me to a surreal place. The image looked real, it was crystal clear and it was as if I was there. Graham's portraits explore scenarios from our collective cultural memory, revealing the depth of his concept of the self-portrait.
Other work include The Gifted Amateur, Nov10th, 1962 2007, Dance!!!! 2008, The Avid Reader, 1949 2011 which are also incredible.