This tape by Dan Graham is presented in the form of an essay. The video opens with a panoramic shot in an industrial estate. The camera moves towards the roof of the Dia Center for the Arts, where the work Two-Way Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube (1988-1991) is. A few people go inside the structure. Reflections can be seen in the walls. A voice off announces: The screen shows the written message: "The surfaces of my two-way mirror glass pavilions are both mirror reflective and transparent. The side of the glass which receives greater sunlight is the more reflective when moving clouds obscure the sun, the darker side is the more transparent." Dan Graham's pavilions are as much architectural space as sculptures. Influenced by the functionalism coming from the Bauhaus, the artist brings out all the sensibility concerned with glass, in his spaces. He is concerned with the socio-political aspect of the material: "The building's appearance and its structural and transparent qualities, unites the myth of scientific progress with the myth of the social utility of effective business operation. Commercial companies or governmental organisations usually occupy these glass and steel buildings. The transparent functionalism of the building hides a less obvious, ideological function: a justification of big companies and governmental organisations using technology and bureaucracy transmit their particular vision of order and society. [...] The use of glass gives another illusion, believing that what you see is seen as it is. [...] Absolute transparency is only visual: glass separates the visual from the verbal, separating the outsider from what goes on in the decision making process, and the invisible, but real, inter-relations between business operations and society." [1]

The tape shows several architectures where glass is used on a large scale, like the World Financial Center and Citicorp in New York, the Vivienne gallery, Charles de Gaulle airport and the Geode (parc de La Villette) in Paris. Dan Graham sets some of these pavilion structures in parallel.

Two Adjacent Pavilions (1978-1981) features two modules (a cylinder and a cube) which are exactly the same size. The sides are made of reflecting glass. The roof of one pavilion is made of glass; the other is made of semi-translucid glass. Over-head lighting varies during the day, bringing about perspective modification, both inside and outside the structures. They were conceived as provisional, outdoor shelters. According to Dan Graham, their origins can be found somewhere near the "rustic hut" of the 18^th century French urbanist and theoretician Marc-Antoine Laugier, the 19^th century belvedere, De Stijl's temporary pavilions - built for exhibitions, and also the contemporary bus shelter.

Another of Dan Grahams works, Children's Pavilion (1986), was shown in the Chambre d'amis exhibition in Gent, in an architect's garden. Like all these installations, this structure functions in the mode of ambiguity. The pavilion belongs to both public and private space, a passage between the family home and the architect's office. The work consists of two, inter-penetrating cubes, made of glass and unsilvered mirrors. The pavilion is built to child-scale and can be used as a play area. Two Cubes One 45ø Rotated (1987), Also featured in this tape, is an adult-scale version of Children's Pavilion.

Dan Graham uses materials glass and mirrors that are linked to the environment. This induces a continual flow in the movement of images, from the sunlight passing through the branches of the trees next to the work. These tiny changes have an effect on the spectator's reception, the structure of the work and on the landscape.

With the tape Two-Way Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube and a Video Salon, Dan Graham gives us a reflection on his art, on the materials he uses, on society and on glass architecture.

Dominique Garrigues.

[1] Dan Graham, Ma position. Ecrits sur mes oeuvres, Villeurbanne, Le Nouveau Musée - Institut / Les Presses du réel, 1992, p. 145-146.