Douglas Gordon

A multimedia installation of films and videos presents the entire oeuvre of Douglas Gordon (Glasgow 1966), one of the most influential figures in video art.

In 1999, invited to exhibit at the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw, Douglas Gordon chose to present his entire body of video work created up to that point. The exhibition was titled Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now’ish…. To be seen on monitors, some with headphones, others run silently and all simultaneously, it was conceived as an exploration of the concept of the archive: a composite device in which heterogeneous works are connected in a visual and conceptual continuum.

This gave rise to the installation of the same name, which has since been reproduced in many exhibition contexts, renewed and expanded, with the addition of more recent works. Douglas Gordon’s works come to life through the reinterpretation and manipulation of heterogeneous visual materials, including famous and forgotten films, historical and scientific documentaries, television series, and amateur videos. Through these fragments of contemporary visual culture, the artist evokes a profound sense of alienation, moving between repetition, identity and that uncanny familiarity that Freud defined as disturbing.

Through strategies such as sampling, repetition, slowing down, division, mirroring and desynchronisation, the artist dismantles the viewer’s expectations and then recomposes them in a new, often ambiguous and destabilising dimension. Imagination, knowledge and common sense are thus shattered and relocated in a visual universe pervaded by subtle tensions and emotional resonances, capable of questioning and fascinating audiences everywhere.

Text in English and Italian.