In the light box work Paradoxical Western Scene (2006), Rodney Graham, in cowboy attire, walks past a tree on which a wanted poster is pinned. The poster shows Graham’s profile and the same wanted poster, creating a recursive image that could potentially repeat infinitely. This does not seem to bother the cowboy Graham, who walks past his own headshot unfazed.
References for this motif include Marcel Duchamp’s print Wanted/$2,000 Reward (1923), Michael Snow’s photograph Authorization (1969), as well as album covers by Marty Robbins and Peter Sellers.
The visual strategy of repetition plays a central role in Rodney Graham’s work as a formal and structural principle. In this piece, not only are stereotypes from film history exaggerated, but the characteristics and possibilities of the photographic medium itself are highlighted and reflected with irony.
