Rodney Graham’s light box piece Dance!!!!! (2008) recalls scenes from a classic Western film. A cowboy sits on top of a piano and points his gun at the floor, shooting at the feet of an elderly man in a black suit, played by Graham himself. The elderly man “dances”, hopping to avoid the shots. Next to him, another cowboy observes the scene unperturbedly.
In this work, Graham humorously addresses the film industry’s influence on our collective visual memory by playing with clichés from film history. The perfect staging and lighting, which uses strong contrasts, reinforce the cinematic character of a work that oscillates between photography and film still.
