– All artists are alike. They dream of doing something that's more social, more collaborative, more real than art.

The famous american artist Dan Graham (1942-2022) started out as a gallerist and critic. He expressed himself through a multi-faceted slew of techniques, such as photography, film, performances and video installations, architectural models and pavilions.

While his approach to art was intellectual and attested to abstraction and minimalism, he never lost sight of the human condition and cultural progress. His works of art always relate to the public. He liked to confront the spectators and to make them envision themselves as part of the oeuvre itself. His glass pavilions dissolve the boundaries between art, surroundings and onlooker.

Ekeberg Pavilion was commissioned especially for the spot where it has been erected. This specifically site-spesific approach made the artist explore the way its surroundings influence the work itself – as well as its limitations and possibilities. In our age, Mies van der Rohe's modernist classic Barcelona Pavilion (1929) is a point of reference that naturally comes to mind.

​© Dan Graham / BONO

Ekeberg Pavilion, 2013.

Glass, stone and metal, 260 × 55 × 715 cm.