Thursday 31 January, 2013 - 9pm

Tickets cost £8/£6 conc (£4 members). Proof of concession or membership to be shown on the doors.

Booking essential. Please call the Information Desk on 020 7522 7888 to check ticket availability and to book.


Screening and talk
Dan Graham, Rock My Religion, 1982-84, 55:27 min

Alongside the screening, co-founder of the Otolith Group, artist and theorist Kodwo Eshun discusses Dan Graham’s important and often overlooked video essay on the making of the working classes in the Industrial Revolution, the birth of the Teenager and the role of the artist as musician and writer in the postpunk era.

Dan Graham’s Rock My Religion (1982–1984) is a video essay populated by punk and rock performers (Patti Smith, Jim Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddie Cochran) and historical figures (including Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers). It represented a coming together of narrative voice-overs, singing and shouting voices, and jarring sounds and overlaid texts that proposed a historical genealogy of rock music and an ambitious thesis about the origins of North America’s popular culture. Because of its passionate embrace of underground music, its low-fi aesthetics, interest in politics, and liberal approach to historiography, the video has become a landmark work in the history of contemporary moving image and art; but it has remained, possibly for the same reasons, one of Graham’s least written about works--underappreciated and possibly misunderstood by the critics who otherwise celebrate him. This illustrated study of Graham’s groundbreaking work fills that critical gap.

Kodwo Eshun examines Rock My Religion not only in terms of contemporary art and Graham’s wider body of work but also as part of the broader culture of the time. He explores the relationship between Graham and New York’s underground music scene of the 1980s, connecting the artistic methods of the No Wave bands--especially their group dynamics and relationship to the audience--and Rock My Religion’s treatment of working class identity and culture.

This event coincides with the launch of Dan Graham: Rock My Religion by Kodwo Eshun, published by Afterall Books.

Don't miss the latest Film