Vexation Island

In Vexation Island, which Graham premiered at the Canadian Pavilion of the 1997 Venice Biennale, the artist appears in full shipwrecked sailor mode, lying unconscious under a tree on a paradise island, with a bruise on his head. Played on a neverending loop, the protagonist wakes up every ten minutes to his cosmic joke, shaking the coconut tree and knocking himself out once again.

• Rodney GrahamDirector