Menu

News / Events

Public Installation

Douglas Gordon
if when why what

December 8–31, 2022, 8:22pm daily
Piccadilly Lights, London
circa.art

Beginning Thursday, December 8, Douglas Gordon will take 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) local time throughout December, with his new film, if when why what (2018–22). The never-before-seen work examines the history of the surrounding area, in particular Soho’s relationship with the erotic entertainment industry, focusing on the neighborhood’s iconic neon signage. The project is presented by the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) in conjunction with the exhibition Douglas Gordon: Neon Ark at Gagosian, Davies Street, London, and will also be viewable online on the CIRCA website.

Watch Online

Rendering of Douglas Gordon’s if when why what (2018–22) on Piccadilly Lights, London

Rendering of Douglas Gordon’s if when why what (2018–22) on Piccadilly Lights, London

Related News

Douglas Gordon, Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now... (1999–), installation view, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany, 2024. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Screening

Douglas Gordon
Film as Raw Material

February 22–March 14, 2024, 6pm on Thursdays
Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London

Join Gagosian for a series of film screenings inside Douglas Gordon’s exhibition All I need is a little bit of everything at the gallery’s Grosvenor Hill location. The show centrally features Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now... (1999–), an ever-growing installation displayed on more than a hundred screens, ranging from traditional TVs to iPads, that brings together nearly all of the artist’s video work from the past three decades. The four films selected for screening have been employed as raw materials in some of Gordon’s most important works and figure prominently in the encyclopedic installation.

Register

Douglas Gordon, Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now... (1999–), installation view, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany, 2024. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Douglas Gordon, undergroundoverheard, 2023 (still) © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2024

Commission

Douglas Gordon
Undergroundoverheard

Douglas Gordon’s undergroundoverheard (2023) will be unveiled at the new Dean Street entrance of the Tottenham Court Road station on February 1, 2024, as part of the Transport for London (TfL) Elizabeth Line, which opened for service in 2022. Installed on a large digital screen on the main wall of the new ticket hall, the video installation builds on Gordon’s text-based artworks that use short statements to make the reader speculate; for the first time, these have been translated into several of the most widely used languages in London, reflecting and celebrating the diversity of the surrounding Soho neighborhood. At seven stations on the Elizabeth Line, the Crossrail Art Programme commissioned public artworks that have been designed to interact both physically and conceptually with their sites.

Douglas Gordon, undergroundoverheard, 2023 (still) © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2024

Douglas Gordon’s hand alongside a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti at Institut Giacometti, Paris. Artwork © Succession Giacometti. Photo: Thomas Gangnet

Partnership

Douglas Gordon and
Institut Giacometti

The exhibition Douglas Gordon: The Morning After was scheduled to open at the Giacometti Institute in Paris on April 24, 2020, placing original works by Gordon side by side with those of Alberto Giacometti. Unfortunately, owing to the covid-19 crisis, the exhibition had to be delayed for a year. As a result, the institution has invited Douglas Gordon to collaborate on several activities from April 2020 through April 2021. This unprecedented partnership, the institute’s first with a contemporary artist, will variously take the form of impromptu interventions, disseminations, exchanges, and meetings on the foundation’s website and in the spaces of the institute and its partners.

Douglas Gordon’s hand alongside a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti at Institut Giacometti, Paris. Artwork © Succession Giacometti. Photo: Thomas Gangnet

Self portrait of Francesca Woodman, she stands against a wall holding pieces of ripped wallpaper in front of her face and legs

Francesca Woodman

Ahead of the first exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s photographs at Gagosian, director Putri Tan speaks with historian and curator Corey Keller about new insights into the artist’s work. The two unravel themes of the body, space, architecture, and ambiguity.

Cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2024, featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat Cover

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2024

The Spring 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available with a fresh cover design featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Lead Plate with Hole (1984).

Sofia Coppola: Archive

Sofia Coppola: Archive

MACK recently published Sofia Coppola: Archive 1999–2023, the first publication to chronicle Coppola’s entire body of work in cinema. Comprised of the filmmaker’s personal photographs, developmental materials, drafted and annotated scripts, collages, and unseen behind-the-scenes photography from all of her films, the monograph offers readers an intimate look into the process behind these films.

Prosperity’s Long Song #1: At Lights-Out Hour

Prosperity’s Long Song #1: At Lights-Out Hour

We present the first installment of a four-part short story by Arinze Ifeakandu. Set at the Marian Boys’ Boarding School in Nigeria, “Prosperity’s Long Song” explores the country’s political upheavals through the lens of ancient mythologies and the mystical power of poetry.

Still from The World of Apu (1959), directed by Satyajit Ray, it features a close up shot of a person crying, only half of their face is visible, the rest is hidden behind fabric

Mount Fuji in Satyajit Ray’s Woodblock Art, Part II

In the first installment of this two-part feature, published in our Winter 2023 edition, novelist and critic Amit Chaudhuri traced the global impacts of woodblock printing. Here, in the second installment, he focuses on the films of Satyajit Ray, demonstrating the enduring influence of the woodblock print on the formal composition of these works.

Two people stand on a snowy hill looking down

Adaptability

Adam Dalva looks at recent films born from short stories by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and asks, What makes a great adaptation? He considers how the beloved surrealist’s prose particularly lends itself to cinematic interpretation.

an open road in the desert with a single car driving on it

Not Running, Just Going

Robert M. Rubin’s Vanishing Point Foreve(RideWithBob/Film Desk Books, 2024) explores the production, reception, and lasting influence of Richard Sarafian’s 1971 film. In this excerpt, Rubin discusses the pseudonymous screenwriter Guillermo Cain (Guillermo Cabrera Infante), the famous Kowalski car, and how a nude hippie biker chick became the Lady Godiva of the internal combustion engine.

Black and white close up image of a person lying down, their face surrounded by a fog of film grain

On Frederick Wiseman

Carlos Valladares writes on the life and work of the legendary American filmmaker and documentarian.

film still of Harry Smith's "Film No. 16 (Oz: The Tin Woodman’s Dream)"

You Don’t Buy Poetry at the Airport: John Klacsmann and Raymond Foye

Since 2012, John Klacsmann has held the role of archivist at Anthology Film Archives, where he oversees the preservation and restoration of experimental films. Here he speaks with Raymond Foye about the technical necessities, the threats to the craft, and the soul of analogue film.

A person lays in bed, their hand holding their face up as they look at something outside of the frame

Whit Stillman

In celebration of the monograph Whit Stillman: Not So Long Ago (Fireflies Press, 2023), Carlos Valladares chats with the filmmaker about his early life and influences.

Black and white portrait of Lisa Lyon

Lisa Lyon

Fiona Duncan pays homage to the unprecedented, and underappreciated, life and work of Lisa Lyon.

Black and white portrait of Alexey Brodovitch

Game Changer: Alexey Brodovitch

Gerry Badger reflects on the persistent influence of the graphic designer and photographer Alexey Brodovitch, the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.