Douglas Gordon
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Douglas Gordon (born 20 September 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.


Work

Much of Gordon's work is seen as being about memory and uses repetition in various forms. He uses material from the public realm and also creates performance-based videos. His work often overturns traditional uses of video by playing with time elements and employing multiple monitors. Gordon has often reused older film footage in his photographs and videos.Douglas Gordon
Guggenheim Collection.
One of his best-known art works is '' 24 Hour Psycho'' (1993) which slows down
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...
's film '' Psycho'' so that it lasts twenty four hours. In ''Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake)'' (1997),
William Friedkin William David Friedkin (; August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in doc ...
's ''
Exorcist In some religions, an exorcist (from the Greek „ἐξορκιστής“) is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person ...
'' (1973) and Henry King's '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943) – two films about adolescent girls driven by external forces – are projected on either side of a single free-standing semi-transparent screen so they can be seen simultaneously.Ken Johnson (9 June 2006)
At MoMA, Douglas Gordon: The Hourglass Contortionist
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''.
The video installation ''left is right and right is wrong and left is wrong and right is right'' (1999) presents two projections of
Otto Preminger Otto Ludwig Preminger ( ; ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian Americans, Austrian-American film and theatre director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the the ...
's '' Whirlpool'' (1949) side by side, with the one on the right reversed so that the two sides mirror each other; by digital means, Gordon separated individual frames of the original film so that odd-numbered ones on one side alternate with even-numbered ones on the other. ''Feature Film'' (1999) is a projection of Gordon's own film of James Conlon conducting Bernard Herrmann's score to '' Vertigo'', thus drawing attention to the
film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
and the emotional responses it creates in the viewer. In one installation, this was placed at the top of a tall building, referencing one of the film's main plot points. In ''Through a looking glass'' (1999), Gordon created a double-projection work around the climactic 71-second scene in
Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Martin Scorsese, many accolades, including an Academ ...
's film ''
Taxi Driver ''Taxi Driver'' is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. Set in a morally decaying New York City following the Vietnam War, it stars Robert De Niro as veteran Marine and ...
'' (1976), in which the main character addresses the camera; the screens are arranged so that the character seems to be addressing himself. At first, the 71-second loops are in sync, but they get progressively out and then progressively back with each repetition of the whole, hourlong program. Originally conceived as a site-specific video projection for Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, ''Play Dead; Real Time'' (2003) consists of two videos projected on two large screens showing a circus elephant named Minnie ponderously performing for an off-screen trainer in the empty, spacious, white-walled gallery room. In each projection the camera circles as the elephant walks around, lies down to play dead and gets up. The footage showing Minnie's sequences of tricks is simultaneously presented in a front and a rear life-sized projection and on a monitor, with each one depicting the same event from a range of perspectives, including close-ups of the animal's eyes. Gordon also made a film about
Zinedine Zidane Zinedine Yazid Zidane (; ; ''Zineddin Lyazid Zidan''; ; born 23 June 1972), popularly known as Zizou, is a French professional Manager (association football), football manager and former Football player, player who played as an attacking midfi ...
, '' Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle'' (2006), an idea first seen in a film by Hellmuth Costard, who, in 1970, made a film about George Best titled ''Football as Never Before.'' The feature-length film, which he co-directed with fellow artist Philippe Parreno and assembled from footage shot by seventeen synchronised cameras placed around the stadium in real time over the course of a single match, premiered outside the competition of the 2006
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
before screenings at numerous international venues. ''k.364'' premiered at the
Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...
in September 2010. Gordon has also made photographs, often in series with relatively minor variations between each individual piece. His ''Blind Stars'' (2002) featured publicity photographs of mid-century movie stars in which the sitters' eyes were replaced by expressionless black, white or mirrored surfaces. In 2010, Gordon collaborated with Rufus Wainwright, creating the visuals for his tour which accompany Rufus' ''All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu'' album. In ''Phantom'' (2011), another collaboration with Wainwright, Gordon employs slow-motion film produced with a high-speed Phantom camera focusing on Wainright's eye – blackened with make-up, weeping, and glaring back at the viewer, echoing melodramatic performances by stars of the silent screen.


Other activities

In 2008, Gordon was a member of the Official Competition Jury at the 65th Venice International Film Festival. He was also a member of the jury that selected Hito Steyerl as recipient of the Käthe Kollwitz Prize in 2019.


Exhibitions

Gordon's first solo show was in 1986. In 1993, he exhibited ''24 Hour Psycho'' in the spaces of Tramway, Glasgow, and at Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. The Berlin show was curated by Klaus Biesenbach. In 1996, Gordon was one of the artists invited to Skulptur Projekte Münster, and in 1997 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. His work was the subject of a 2001 retrospective organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which travelled to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. In 2005, he put together an exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin called ''The Vanity of Allegory.'' In 2006, ''Douglas Gordon Superhumanatural'' opened at the
National Galleries of Scotland The National Galleries of Scotland (, sometimes also known as National Galleries Scotland) is the executive non-departmental public body that controls the three national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries, forming one of the Nation ...
complex in Edinburgh, being Gordon's first major solo exhibition in Scotland since he presented '' 24 Hour Psycho'' in 1993. Also in 2006, the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
(MoMA) in New York showed a retrospective of Gordon's work, called ''Timeline,'' which was curated by Klaus Biesenbach. Another 2006 retrospective was on view at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. A survey of his textworks was shown at Tate Britain, London in 2010. Retrospective solo exhibitions were shown at Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main in 2011 to 2012, Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2013 and at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne in 2014. Further solo exhibitions have been held at Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany 2013, Musée D'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2014. Gordon took part in the Biennale of Sydney 2014 and Documenta 17. In 2019, his works were exhibited at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation, Venice, during the show ''Hey Psycho!''.


Collections

Gallery versions of '' Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle'' (2006) were purchased by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The Guggenheim collection also include Through a Looking Glass (1999) and Tattoo (for Reflection) by Gordon. Several photographs and video installations are in the Migros Museum for contemporary art in Zürich., in the Tate collection, National Galleries of Scotland, Musée D'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Play Dead; Real Time (2003) is co-owned by MMK Frankfurt and Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection. His colour photograph ''Monster'' (1996–7) is in the permanent collection of the
Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...
.


Awards

* 1996:
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
* 1997:
Venice Biennial The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
's Premio 2000 award * 1998: Central Kunstpreis awarded by the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne * 1998: Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum * 2008: Roswitha Haftmann Prize * 2011: London Award for Art and Performance * 2012: Käthe Kollwitz Prize awarded by the Academy of Arts, Berlin * 2012:
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...
Grade de Commandeur * 2018: Elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh


References


Further reading

*


External links


Gagosian Gallery: Douglas GordonReview of "what you want me to say..." exhibition in BarcelonaDouglas Gordon
in the Video Data Bank
"Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now. To be seen on monitors, some with headphones, others run silently and all simultaneously." (1992–)

Douglas Gordon at Dvir Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Douglas 1966 births Living people Turner Prize winners Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Scottish contemporary artists Young British Artists Artists from Glasgow Scottish emigrants to Germany