There are a pair of concrete sinks in the laundry house of the Vallegrande Hospital in Bolivia which are also covered with text. They are the slabs upon which Che Guevara’s corpse was displayed to the world press the day after his execution on 10th October 1967. The display took place to prove that he had been captured and killed by CIA assisted Bolivian rangers, and the location attracts visitors who leave their mark on the sinks and the surrounding surfaces.
Graham Dolphin makes work that examines how we – the viewer, reader or fan – deals with emotional attachment to the people who we allow to influence our lives and the culture around us. Dolphin often repurposes the fan made artefacts that sprout upon around memorials, small individual gestures that accumulate into something more substantial.
Samuel Beckett ’s last poem is titled Comment Dire, which can be translated as What is the word. The original document is now archived and shows text in French, staggered down the page, interspersed with revisions. Dolphin used this document as the starting point for cycle of drawings that describe papers belonging to artists, novelists, poets and song-writers. The selected images range from Frida Kahlo’s final journal entry, the faxed sheaf of Charles Bukowski’s last poem to the cover of Kurt Cobain’s songwriting book. Each item is depicted as creased, torn and personal, not a drawing of the mediated cultural output but of the personal ephemera.
Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Regina Gallery, Moscow; Vaxjo Konsthall, Sweden; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen. Group shows include Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Schunk, The Netherlands; The New Art Gallery Walsall; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee and Terrible Beauty: Art, Crisis, Change & The Office of Non-Compliance, Dublin Contemporary, Dublin.
Biography
Seventeen Exhibitions
Like Smoke Relates to Fire
What is the Word
Burn Away Fade Out
Six Sheet
33 1/3
Graham Dolphin, Bench, 2010
Wood, steel, marker pen, paint, ink, graphite, biro, tippex, wax, paper, cotton thread, shoelace, plectrum, leather
77 x 213 x 65 cm
Graham Dolphin, Jim Morrison 1984, 2010
Plaster, marble dust, marker pen, paint, ink, graphite, polymer, dirt
60 x 27 x 27 cm
Dolphin produced a series of six works based on the bust produced by a fan, left on Jim Morrison’s grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The works describe the progressive deterioration of the work each year, as the object was damaged by fan graffiti, which covered not only Morrison’s monument but also adjacent tombs. The bust itself gradually became considered part of the site, as people chipped parts of it off to keep and ultimately the item was stolen by 1987.
Graham Dolphin, Jim Morrison 1987, 2010
Plaster, marble dust, marker pen, paint, ink, graphite, polymer, dirt
60 x 27 x 27 cm
Graham Dolphin, Jim Morrison 1988, 2010
Plaster, marble dust, marker pen, paint, ink, graphite, polymer, dirt
60 x 27 x 27 cm
Graham Dolphin, Note, 2009
Graphite and ink on paper
49.5 x 37 cm
Graham Dolphin, Detail of Bench, 2010
77 x 213 x 65 cm
Graham Dolphin, Last Diary Entry, 2012
Graphite on paper
42 x 29 cm
The last diary entry of American writer by William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997) on 1st August 1997, the day before his death.
Graham Dolphin, Installation view of Come Together at Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, 2014
Two channel video, 13 mins
Graham Dolphin, Notebook, 2012
Graphite on paper
42 x 29 cm
The front cover of the last notebook used by American singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain (1967 – 1994).
Graham Dolphin, Sink, 2011
Wood, metal, plastic, plaster, ink, varnish, glue, marker pen, acrylic paint, spray paint, wax, dirt
100 x 120 x 140 cm
This work is a recreation of the pair of sinks in the laundry house of the Vallegrande hospital in Bolivia upon which Guevara’s corpse was displayed to the world press the day after his execution on 10th October
1967. The display took place to prove that he had been captured and killed by CIA assisted Bolivian rangers. Dolphin has remade the plinth-like concrete sinks that are now adorned with graffiti from visitors wanting
to mark their pilgrimage.
Exhibition view: The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Contemporary, 2011, Terrible Beauty – Art, Crisis, Change & The Office of Non-Compliance. Curated by Christian Viveros-Faune and Jota Castro.
Graham Dolphin, Peace, Love, Empathy, 2010
Scratched poster, signed by Kurt Cobain
49.5 x 64.8 cm
Graham Dolphin, Rock, 2010
Polystyrene, concrete, plaster, paint, glue, wood, ink, marker pen, felt-tip, graphite, dirt
100 x 115 x 55cm