Douglas Gordon Exhibition ‘Superhumanatural’
I went to see a retrospective of Douglas Gordon’s video work in an exhibition entitled ‘Superhumanatural’ in Edinburgh.
I had been looking forward to seeing 24 hour Psycho (1993), a slowed-down version of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. I wanted to see which scene I would be a part of, by walking into the space when it was being played. Watching a silent Marion Crane driving away from the crime scene, struggling with her emotions of guilt and happiness, I felt as though I wanted to fast forward to the death scene, so that I could experience the impatience, tension and anxiety, as this scene was causing extreme agonising suspense boarding on the absurd.
I thought that I would be able to see things that I hadn't noticed from watching the film at a normal rate. I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed with what I saw, but I would have liked to have the chance to walk in on the exhibit on another day to try and catch the infamous death scene.
One particular video installation- Minnie, caught my attention. I had saw images of this video in books and monographs, but hadn’t used it as a focus to validate or influence my practice because I felt that the video didn’t directly relate to my choice of medium or context. However, when I had the chance to see this work, I realised that it explored the notion of struggle and observation and the feeling of uselessness through not being able to help.
Minnie was displayed on two huge screens that the viewer could wander in between. I got to see Minnie lying down and struggling to stand up, as the camera panned around her body, trunk and feet it gave me a sense of being tiny in comparison to the elephant. I sat and watched as Minnie stood up and laid down and stomped around and wandered what it would be like to sit in front of a real performing elephant.
The exhibition has given me a better insight for how to display my work, the entrance to the National Gallery of Scotland was packed full with TV monitors that were grouped together and stacked on top of one another. Each monitor had a different video on it and it was hard to watch just one at a time. I wanted to see all of them without being distracted by another.
Divided Self (1996) was shown on two TV monitors with other monitors positioned around, on top of it and underneath. The videos of Divided Self feature parts of the artist's body doing something or having something done to them. The works display a fascination with doubling, mirroring and reflection. The artist is shown turning against himself - wrestling, constraining, disfiguring. I felt that this work would have benefited from being shown on a large screen, so that every detail of the struggle and twisting of skin could have been highlighted and inspected by the gaze of the viewer.
