About
I’m interested in the fine line between my intentions and the perceptions of others; that moment when someone encounters something and realizes that there is more to it than meets the eye.
—Douglas Gordon
Working across mediums and disciplines, Douglas Gordon investigates moral and ethical questions, mental and physical states, as well as collective memory and selfhood. Using literature, folklore, and iconic Hollywood films in addition to his own footage, drawings, and writings, he distorts time and language in order to disorient and challenge.
Gordon was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1966 and studied sculpture and environmental art at the Glasgow School of Art (1984–88). After graduating, he attended the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1988–90), where he began to more deeply explore his interests in cinema and film. In 1990 he returned to Glasgow and became involved with Transmission Gallery, an artist-run space that hosted exhibitions and served as a studio and social hub. Two years later Gordon presented 24 Hour Psycho; (1993) at Tramway, Glasgow. The work extends the duration of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho (1960) from its original 110 minutes to twenty-four hours; the manipulated footage was played on a large hanging screen in a dark room, which allowed visitors to view the projection from the front or the back.
In the mid-1990s Gordon moved to Cologne, Germany, where he developed From God to Nothing; (1996), a text piece spanning four walls; Three Inches Black (1997), a series of photographs in which three inches of a finger are tattooed black—the subtext in this case being that three inches is the vital length a blade would need to be in order to inflict a fatal wound; and Between Darkness and Light (after William Blake) (1997), a large-scale video installation that pairs a film about divine revelation with another about satanic possession, which was exhibited in an underpass as part of Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1997.
Photo: Colin Davison/Bridgeman Images
#DouglasGordon
Website
Exhibitions
Douglas Gordon: To Sing
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: if when why what
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.
Douglas Gordon
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.
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2018
The Spring 2018 Gagosian Quarterly with a cover by Ed Ruscha is now available for order.
Douglas Gordon: I had nowhere to go
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
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.
Making Eyes: Douglas Gordon
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.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
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.
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
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
Visit
Noor Riyadh Festival 2023
The Bright Side of the Desert Moon
November 30–December 16, 2023
Various locations in Riyadh
riyadhart.sa
The third annual Noor Riyadh, a citywide festival of public art installations, will showcase expansive light-based artworks by more than one hundred artists across five pivotal city hubs. Titled The Bright Side of the Desert Moon, the selection features ephemeral sculptures, urban projections, and immersive site-specific installations, including neon works by Douglas Gordon and Carsten Höller.
Carsten Höller, Decimal Clock (Blue and Orange), 2023 © Carsten Höller. Photo: Thomas Lannes
Museum Exhibitions
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Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno
Zidane, un portrait du XXIe siècle
October 5, 2023–January 7, 2024
Philharmonie de Paris
philharmoniedeparis.fr
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006), a film collaboration by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, is screening at the Philharmonie de Paris. Shot on seventeen synchronized cameras, Zidane frames the movements of footballer Zinédine Zidane in real time over the course of a single match between Real Madrid and Villarreal at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on April 23, 2005. The seventeen large screens suspended around key parts of the exhibition play specific sounds and create a spatial effect, inviting visitors to stroll through both image and audio.
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, 2006 (still) © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2023 and © Philippe Parreno
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Douglas Gordon
k.364
May 7–August 7, 2022
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland
www.dca.org.uk
This exhibition focuses on Douglas Gordon’s film installation k.364 (2011), which features two Israeli musicians of Polish descent traveling to Poland from Berlin by train. Shown on multiple screens with layered audio, the work is an intimate document of the relationship between individuals and the power of music, set against the subtly drawn backdrop of a dark and unresolved social history.
Douglas Gordon, k.364, 2011, installation view, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany
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Alberto Giacometti / Douglas Gordon
The Morning After
April 20–June 12, 2022
Institut Giacometti, Paris
www.fondation-giacometti.fr
Douglas Gordon’s work on the distortion of time and the tensions between opposing forces shares common ground with Alberto Giacometti’s questioning of the human condition. Granted carte blanche to imagine a dialogue between his practice and Giacometti’s, Gordon presents a series of previously unexhibited works alongside little-known sculptures and drawings by Giacometti. Among these, small sculptures by Giacometti are nestled within casts of Gordon’s own hands, enacting a literal and figurative “point of contact” between their artworks.
Top: Alberto Giacometti, Tête d’homme, c. 1962–65 © Succession Alberto Giacometti/ADAGP, Paris 2022. Bottom: Douglas Gordon, Hand Holding Head of a Man, 2022 © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany, 2022. Photo: courtesy Studio lost but found, Berlin, and Kamel Mennour, Paris
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Icons
May 6–November 14, 2021
Boghossian Foundation, Brussels
www.villaempain.com
From early European and Middle Eastern artifacts to modern and contemporary works, icons have inspired many believers, as well as artists, throughout the ages. This exhibition explores how spiritual dimensions have been incorporated into artworks from antiquity to the present day. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Ellen Gallagher, Douglas Gordon, Duane Hanson, Titus Kaphar, and Andy Warhol is included.
Ellen Gallagher, Untitled, 2000 © Ellen Gallagher