Images: Contemporary photographs courtesy Dan Graham Historic images, Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon
In 1984, artist, curator, and writer Dan Graham created Rock my religion, a 55-minute video presenting the story of the Shakers against the history of American rock music. Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon was pleased to have screened this work at the North Family historic site.
Rock my religion draws a narrative line from Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, through the development of rock and roll and finally to individual voices such as the iconic Patti Smith. Through its rough aesthetic and collage of text over imagery, Rock my religion presents a provocative thesis on the Shakers’ place in culture, both past and contemporary, as well as the relationship between rock and religion.
The video portrays a long tradition in American music, worship and dance of transgression, defiance and a search for transcendence, and is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Rock my religion was exhibited in the North Family Wash House in 2014.
Collections Manager
Sharon Duane Koomler is a Shaker scholar and traditional letterpress printer living in upstate New York. She has academic degrees in American Folklore from Indiana University and Western Kentucky University. Sharon has worked at Shaker Museums from Kentucky to New Hampshire as an educator, curator, consultant, and director. She has written and published on Shaker material culture and spirituality, and lectured widely on Shaker art, life, and belief. Sharon has a particular interest in the under-researched social aspects of Shaker life and ways in which Shakers practiced inclusion and intentionality.