Installation view
Artwork © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Douglas Gordon
Play Dead; Real Time (Other Way), 2003 (video still)
DVD on monitor, dimensions variable, edition of 7
Douglas Gordon
Play Dead; Real Time (Other Way), 2003 (video still)
DVD on monitor, Dimensions variable, edition of 7
My work is more about researching, about memory, about stories that happened, films I saw. . . . I’m interested in finding out what happens when you look at something so long, it disappears. You look at a picture, you start looking through the picture and you get to the other side—and then you go back to the front view.
—Douglas Gordon
Gagosian is pleased to present Douglas Gordon: Play Dead; Real Time, an exhibition consisting of three new large-scale video projection works.
The subject of these monumental works is a giant Indian elephant—a classic symbol of memory, which here also functions as a trope for our own remembrances of circuses, zoos, nature documentaries, and all the various situations where the chaotic power of the wild is held safely at a distance and controlled. As the title suggests, the elephant appears to conform to commands and lie on its side before attempting to return to its feet. The impossibility of the idea and the incapability to occupy both states simultaneously are reminiscent of the artist’s continuing investigations of the polarities between control and free will, life and death.
On the occasion of Douglas Gordon: All I need is a little bit of everything, an exhibition in London, curator Adam Szymczyk recounts his experiences with Gordon’s work across nearly three decades, noting the continuities and evolutions.
Douglas Gordon took over the Piccadilly Lights advertising screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus, as well as a global network of screens in cities including Berlin, Melbourne, Milan, New York, and Seoul, nightly for three minutes at 20:22 (8:22pm) throughout December 2022, with his new film, if when why what (2018–22). The project was presented by the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) in conjunction with the exhibition Douglas Gordon: Neon Ark at Gagosian, Davies Street, London.
Katrina Brown discusses the importance of Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho (1993) and some of the films that followed, touching on threads that run throughout the artist’s career.
The Spring 2018 Gagosian Quarterly with a cover by Ed Ruscha is now available for order.
Featuring an extensive interview with Douglas Gordon on the process of making his 2016 film I had nowhere to go: Portrait of a displaced person, this video, produced by Berlin Art Link, includes clips of Jonas Mekas and revealing anecdotes about the creation of the film.
Douglas Gordon and Morgane Tschiember’s installation As close as you can for as long as it lasts, presented during Elevation 1049: Avalanche in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Douglas Gordon and Rufus Wainwright collaborated to produce afflictive, slow-motion projections to accompany Wainwright’s performances during his 2010 All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu tour.
