Rodney Graham’s photograph Renaissance Man (2006) shows the artist dressed in an old-fashioned style as a recorder player, confidently posing with his instrument in a contemporary garden setting, either before or after a performance.
The photograph references Graham’s backlit lightbox work Three Musicians (2006), which depicts three ensemble members from the 1970s performing a 14th-century piece in medieval-style dress. Through this doubled staging, Graham engages with the idea of historical reconstruction and playfully explores questions of identity, authenticity, and our relationship to history.
