Rock is Hard
Rodney Graham
Canadian, 1949–2022
2003
A packaged music release—two 12-inch vinyl records and a CD—presented by Rodney Graham as a staged, cinematic artwork that treats a pop album as both a musical object and a conceptual photograph, exploring performance and narrative.
The cover looks like a slightly comic postcard: a sunlit yellow floatplane tied to a wooden dock with a uniformed man holding a megaphone beside it, while bold blue-and-yellow type for the title floats above, giving the scene a staged, retro-cinematic feel.
The work blurs pop music, staged photography, and conceptual art, showing how contemporary artists repurpose commercial formats like the record to stage narratives and collapse boundaries between image, sound, and performance.
Medium
Set of two 12-inch vinyl records and CD
Dimensions
.1: 12 5/16 x 12 1/2" (31.2 x 31.7 cm)
.2: 4 15/16 x 5 1/2 x 1/4" (12.5 x 14 x 0.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Donald Young Gallery
Accession
803.2013.1-2
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
