Printed Matter and Greene Naftali are pleased to co-host the launch and signing of Dan Graham’s Buildings and Signs, a 2016 reprint of the artist’s 1981 exhibition catalogue. The event will be accompanied by an informal discussion on comedy between Graham and artist Michael Smith. The two artists, both active for decades, share in common deadpan presentation and an affinity for travestying aspiration—while Dan Graham chronicles suburbia with mock seriousness in projects dating from 1966’s Homes for America, Michael Smith’s ongoing character “Mike” has spent decades fumbling through middle class and middle age. Smith is an expert on Borscht Belt comedy, and Graham is an aficionado on Martin Short Canadian-Jewish comedy. Graham and Smith will explore the genre of comedy, and its points of intersection with the arts.

Dan Graham’s Buildings and Signs was originally published on the occasion of the exhibition “DAN GRAHAM: Selected Works,” curated by Anne Rorimer and held at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago from October 4 through November 8, 1981. The Museum of Modern Art Oxford contributed to the publication after holding an exhibition of the artist’s work in 1978. Both Dan Graham and Anne Rorimer’s critical texts are included in the book. Buildings and Signs was reprinted in 2016 by Greene Naftali, New York.

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