Rodney Graham’s colorful photographic series Canadian Humorist (2012) shows the artist in the role of an intellectual, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a checkered blazer, a turtleneck, and distinctive sideburns, looking straight ahead intently. The motif derives from Graham’s eponymous light box work, in which he references the Canadian journalist and television host Pierre Berton (1920–2004).
Doubling and mirroring appear in many of Rodney Graham’s works. The self-portrait, with all its obvious and less obvious implications, is one of the most important genres in his oeuvre. In this context, Graham is not concerned with analyzing his own psyche, but rather with staging his own (artist) persona, which he holds up as a mirror to the long history of a “modernism’s self-reflection.”
The series also includes: Canadian Humourist – Pink (2012); Canadian Humourist – Orange (2012); Canadian Humourist – Green (2012); Canadian Humourist – Purple (2012); Canadian Humourist – Yellow (2012)
