LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents “k.364,” an exhibition by Douglas Gordon.
Gordon is a conjurer of collective memory and perceptual surprise whose tools include the everyday commodities of popular culture: Hollywood films, found scientific footage, photographs of rock stars, or poetic and ambiguous phrases. Into a diverse body of work - which spans video and film, sound, photographic objects, and texts both as installation and printed matter - he infuses a combination of humor and trepidation to manipulate reactions to the familiar. An early example, 24 Hour Psycho (1993), slowed down Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary 1960 film into a full day’s duration, drawing out the horror until any sensation of suspense ceased to exist. In 2006, he collaborated with Philippe Parreno on the feature film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which used multiple cameras to follow every movement of the international soccer star.
Gordon’s new film k.364 involves two Israeli musicians of Polish descent (Avri Levitan and Roi Shiloah) traveling to Poland from Berlin by train. Shown on multiple screens and with layered sound, the film follows the two men through a desolate landscape in a country whose tragic and violent history is barely resolved for them. Gordon films the musicians on this personal journey, isolating intimate moments at which their passionate love of music seems to move between them.
Leaving Berlin, they travel through Poznan, home of the celebrated Amadeus chamber orchestra, where the former synagogue is still used as a swimming pool. The journey concludes with the musicians’ performance, at the Warsaw Philharmonic concert hall, of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (also known as Mozart’s “Kochel Composition k.364”, from which the title of Gordon’s film is derived.) The film is an intimate document of the relationship between individuals and the power of music, against the subtly drawn backdrop of a dark and unresolved social history.
A series of wooden flat files topped with glass vitrines will also be on view. Gordon has filled the mirrored displays with ephemera such as playing cards, books and photographs. Part sketchbook, part time capsule, the cabinets present a glimpse of his experiences and diverse network of sources.
Douglas Gordon was the recipient of the 1996 Turner Prize, the 1997 Venice Biennial's Premio 2000 award, the 1998 Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the 2008 Roswitha Haftmann Prize. His work has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2006); “Timeline,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006), traveled to MALBA Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires (2007); “Pretty much every word written, spoken, heard, overheard from 1989…,” the MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto, Italy (2006); “Superhumanatural,” the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2006); “Between Darkness and Light: Works 1989 – 2007,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2007); “Blood, Sweat, Tears,” DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2009) and Tate Britain, London (2010). The feature-length film, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which he co-directed with artist Philippe Parreno, premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival before screenings at numerous international venues. k.364 premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2010.
Gordon lives and works in Berlin and Glasgow.
