Douglas Gordon Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012

Press information
Douglas Gordon
Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Award ceremony and exhibition opening
14th September 2012, 7 pm
Exhibition
15th September – 4th November 2012
Content
Exhibition information
Press release
Statement of the jury
Biography Douglas Gordon
Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work From About 1992 Until Now (List of exhibited works)
The Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Overview press photos
As of 13.09.2012
Press contact phone +49 (0)30 200 57-1514, [email protected]
Brigitte Heilmann, phone -1513, [email protected]
Stephanie Eck, phone -1565, [email protected]
Exhibition information
Title
Douglas Gordon
Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Running time
15th September – 4th November 2012
Location
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Phone +49 (0)30 200 57-2000, [email protected]
Opening hours and admission
Tue-Sun 11 am-7 pm, admission free
Press preview
Friday, 14th September 2012, 11 am
With Douglas Gordon and Wulf Herzogenrath, Director of the Fine Arts
Section of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Award ceremony and
exhibition opening
Friday, 14th September 2012, 7 pm
Speakers: Klaus Staeck, H.E. Simon Gerard McDonald, Dr. Klaus
Tiedeken; Laudatory speech: Mirosław Bałka
Artist’s talk
Tuesday, 23rd October 2012, 7 pm
Douglas Gordon and Mirosław Bałka
Publication
Douglas Gordon. Käthe-Kollwitz-Preis 2012
German/english, Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2012, 26 colour images,
48 pages. ISBN 978-3-8833-193-7, € 7
Credits
With kind support of Kreissparkasse Köln,
funding body of Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln.
In the context of the Berlin Art Week, www.berlinartweek.de
Concept
Douglas Gordon, Anke Hervol
Project coordination
Susanne Anger
The Akademie der Künste is financed by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 2
Press release
Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012 of the Akademie der Künste to Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon will be receiving the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012 and exhibiting a selected work in the Akademie
der Künste on Hanseatenweg. With this prize awarded annually to a visual artist, the Akademie der Künste this
year recognises the new impulses that Gordon has given to international media art.
Gordon’s Work is characterised by the method of deconstruction: he disables the closed narrative structure of
film and dedicates himself to its technical and psychological fundamental conditions. In 1993 he caused a stir
with 24 Hour Psycho. This soundless version of Hitchcock’s film classic “Psycho”, stretched out to 24 hours by
slowing it down, announced Gordon to a wider audience beyond the boundaries of the contemporary art scene.
The Kollwitz Prize exhibition shows Gordon’s ever-growing multi-channel installation Pretty much every film
and video work from about 1992 until now on 93 freely arranged used monitors in one exhibition hall. The
installation comprises 74 individual titles of the artist’s video and film works, amongst others “24 Hour Psycho”
(1993), “Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake)” (1997), “Play Dead; Real Time” (2003), “k.364 –
A Journey by Train” (2010), “Henry Rebel” (2011) and “Phantom” (2011). Unlike his monumental film
installations, this retrospective overview rather explores the idea of a private video archive showing central
subjects and formal strategies of Gordon’s works.
Douglas Gordon, born in Glasgow in 1966, splits his life between Berlin und Glasgow. Studies at the Glasgow
School of Art and the Slade School of Art in London. Numerous works in both private and public collections
worldwide. Solo exhibitions in such museums as the Museum for Modern Art in Frankfurt/Main, MoMA in New
York, TATE Britain in London, the Wolfsburg Art Museum, the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Van
Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.. 1996 Turner Prize winner, in 1998
he got the Central Kunstpreis at Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, in 2008 member of the jury at the 65th
Venice International Film Festival.
Statement of the Jury
The growing convergence of photography, film and video with the fine arts – an ‘iconic turn‘ that has been a
focus of analysis and discourse in studies of visual culture since the early 1990s – has long since culminated in
a crossover phenomenon. However, in the fine arts this means more than that such fields of reproduction and
duplication simply influenced cultural, social and scientific developments, as well as the World Wide Web, in
the wake of their elevation to mass media status. It also indicates that new forms of critical reception of
photography, film and video have emerged and (at the latest since 1995) have earned recognition in the fine
arts at the major international Biennial exhibitions. Douglas Gordon belongs to the younger contemporary
artists to explore this trend. In 1999, his provocative statement, ‘Cinema is dead’, clearly articulated how the
narratives and images of cinema could be entirely deconstructed in the light of new technical possibilities, in
order to claim new validity and tenability as monumental and critical works of art. Gordon was already
fascinated by the classics of film history as a child. The artist has always placed emphasis on a critical
interpretation of the difference between image, copy and reality, which also applies to his treatment of the
moral values found in film, television and reality.
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 3
Douglas Gordon’s oeuvre is based on the idea that the ambiguity of his art appeals to his audience, who then
begin to explore its deeper meaning. In this regard, the method of deconstruction and the consequence of its
pursuit play a significant role. In his film works, the winner of the 1996 Turner Prize adopts the icons of film
history and the film score (Vertigo and Psycho), or football (Zidane), as well as referencing Plato’s Allegory of
the Cave (Plato’s Cave, 2006) – to mention only a few sources. For Gordon, deconstruction implies modifying
existing film material so as to cancel out the basic characteristics of the original film. Alternatively, he conceives
his own complex “feature films” that do not correspond to the flow of any feature-length films. Alongside his
large-scale and space-consuming cinematic projections, the Scottish visual artist also creates sculptural
installations, conceptual textual works (e.g. List of Names, since 1990), reworked photographs and video
installations.
Douglas Gordon’s reputation has reached beyond the contemporary art scene since 24 Hour Psycho, 1993,
and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, 2006. In 2008 he was invited to be a jury member at the 65th Venice
International Film Festival. The impressive quality of Gordon’s monumental video installation, 24 Hour Psycho,
is indebted to his soundless version of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho (1960) that was drastically slowed down
and ran for 24 hours. For the artist, this was a key work in which any measurement of time or soundtrack was
entirely suspended. The viewer is reduced to a state of helplessness and disorientation, being caught up in the
unique physical presence of pure images. Here, Gordon deactivates the film’s linear narrative structure and
devotes himself to its technical and psychological basic conditions. He concentrates on the effect of the
medium on the viewer and the question of how real time is reflected in film. Since we can hardly escape the
narrative structures of mainstream cinema nowadays, he searches for ‘what cinema, not film, could substitute.
In other words, the chance of being mesmerized once again.’ (Douglas Gordon, 1999) In Feature Film, 1998,
for example, viewers cannot see what they hear. But Bernard Herrmann’s memorable film score for Hitchcock’s
Vertigo, 1958, is recognizable. Douglas Gordon filmed a new live version of the film soundtrack, meticulously
focusing on James Conlon from differing viewpoints, as he conducted the Paris Opera Orchestra. Gordon’s
feature film is the same length as the original Vertigo: 122 minutes and 55 seconds of image versus sound.
Douglas Gordon has convinced the jury with his unique artistic and conceptual interpretation of historic film
material, as well as his endeavour to combine the past, present and future in a way that reveals the novel
experiences and dimensions generally alien to cinema made for mass consumption. Everything depends on
the question of individual identity and perception while viewing films – on experiencing, seeing, feeling,
remembering and awareness.
Jurors
Mirosław Bałka
Katharina Grosse
Hermann Pitz
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 4
Biography
Douglas Gordon
Born 1966
Lives and works in Berlin and Glasgow.
Education
1984–1988 Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
1988–1990 The Slade School of Art, London
Awards and Honours
1996
Turner Prize, London
Kunstpreis Niedersachsen, Kunstverein Hannover
1997
Premio 2000, 47. Biennale di Venezia, Venedig
Daad-Stipendium, Berlin
1998
Central Kunstpreis, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln
Lord Provost’s Award, Glasgow City Council, Glasgow
Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York
2008
Roswitha Haftmann Preis, Roswitha Haftmann-Stiftung, Zürich
Juror, 65. Internationale Filmfestspiele von Venedig
Selected Screenings
1999
Douglas Gordon: Feature Film, Giorgione Movie d’Essai, 48. Biennale di Venezia / The Atlantis
Gallery, London / Centre Pompidou, Paris / Gallery Foksal, Warschau/ Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
2001
Douglas Gordon: Feature Film, Meeting House Square, Dublin / Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
Boulevard, Los Angeles
2008
24 Hour Psycho (24 hour screening), VIVID, Birmingham
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Film Anthology Archive, New York / daadgalerie, Berlin
The New Ten Commandments, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh / Cambridge Film
Festival, Cambridge / Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sheffield
2009
The New Ten Commandments, Expresión en Corto International Film Festival, Mexiko / Bradford
International Film Festival, Bradford / Mexico Human Rights Film Festival, Mexiko / NZ Human
Rights Film Festival, Neuseeland
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warschau
2010
k.364 – A Journey by Train, 23rd International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), Amsterdam /
Estoril Film Festival, Estoril, Portugal / 67. Biennale di Venezia / Toronto International Film Festival
The New Ten Commandments, 18th Curtas Vila do Conde Film Festival, Portugal
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow / Loft Project ETAGI,
St. Petersburg / „In Context“, Johannesburg
2011
k.364 – A Journey by Train, 12th Jeonju International Film Festival, Südkorea / 11th International
Cinema Festival of Tarragona / 5th Cinema City, Novi Sad International Film Festival, Serbien /
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 5
Selected Solo Shows since 2000
2000
„Sheep and Goats“, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
„Douglas Gordon, Black Spot“, Tate Liverpool
„Croque Mort“, Yvon Lambert, Paris
„Douglas Gordon: Feature Film“, Royal Festival Hall, London
„Double Cross: The Hollywood Films of Douglas Gordon“, The Power Plant, Toronto
2001
„Thirteen“, Gagosian Gallery, New York
„Douglas Gordon“, Lisson Gallery, London
„5 year drive-by“, Twentynine Palms, Los Angeles
„Douglas Gordon“, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
2002
„Confessions of a Justified Sinner“, Kunsthaus Bregenz
„Douglas Gordon“, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
„What Have I Done“, Hayward Gallery, London
2003
„Douglas Gordon: Letters, telephone calls, postcards, miscellaneous“, Van Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven
„Play Dead, Real Time“, Gagosian Gallery, New York
„Douglas Gordon“, Museo Tamayo and Instituto Nacionale de Bellas Artes, Mexiko
„Douglas Gordon“, Yvon Lambert, Paris
„Douglas Gordon: Blind Star“, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
„24 Hour Psycho“, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö
2004
„Douglas Gordon“, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
2005
„Gordon’s The Vanity of Allegory“, Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin
2006
„Douglas Gordon: Timeline“, The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA, New York
„Self Portraits of You + Me (Bond Girls)“, Gagosian Gallery, New York
„Prettymucheverywordwritten, Spoken, Heard, Overheard from 1989“, MART, Museo di arte
moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto
„Self Portraits of You + Me (Bond Girls)“, Gagosian Gallery, London
„Superhumanatural“, Royal Scottish Academy Building, Edinburgh
2007
„Between Darkness and Light“, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
„Douglas Gordon: Timeline“, Malba – Colección Costantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de
Buenos Aires
„Douglas Gordon“, Yvon Lambert, Paris
„Self-Portrait of You + Me, after the factory“, Gagosian Gallery, New York
„Pretty much every film of video work from about 1992 until now“, The British School at Rome,
Rom / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2008)
2008
„Où se trouvent les clefs?“, La Collection Lambert en Avignon
„Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno“, daadgalerie, Berlin /
BAMcinématek, Brooklyn, New York / Magasin 3, Stockholm
2009
„blood, sweat, tears“, DOX, Prag
„Douglas Gordon“, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich
„Douglas Gordon“, DVIR Gallery, Hangar 2, Jaffa Port, Israel
2010
Yvon Lambert presents Douglas Gordon at Art Forum Berlin
2011
„k.364“, Gagosian Gallery, London
„Phantom“, Yvon Lambert, Paris
„Douglas Gordon“, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 6
Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work From About 1992 Until Now (List of exhibited works)
Multi channel video installation with sound, dimensions variable
Magic Newspaper, 1992
24 Hour Psycho, 1993
Douglas Gordon sings ‘The Best of Lou Reed and the
Velvet Underground’ (for Bas Jan Ader), 1993
10 ms-1, 1994
Bad Faith, 1994
Hysterical, 1994
Trigger Finger, 1994
5 Year Drive-By, 1995
B-Movie, 1995
Bootleg (Cramped), 1995
Confessions of a Justified Sinner, 1995
Film Noir (Fear), 1995
Film Noir (Fly), 1995
Film Noir (Hand), 1995
Film Noir (Perspire), 1995
Film Noir (Sleeper), 1995
Film Noir Twins, 1995
Fuzzy Logic, 1995
Hand and Foot, 1995
Head, 1995
Predictable Incidents in Unfamiliar Surroundings, 1995
Remote Viewing, 1995
A Divided Self I & II, 1996
Black and White Babylon, 1996
Bootleg (Bigmouth), 1996
Bootleg (Stoned), 1996
Making of Monster, 1996
Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake), 1997
Bootleg (Empire), 1997
A Moment’s Silence, 1998
Blue, 1998
Dead Right, 1998
Left Dead, 1998
Off Screen (B&W), 1998
Off Screen (Colour), 1998
Monument for X, 1998
Domestic, 1999
Feature Film, 1999
Left is Right and Right is Wrong and Left is Wrong
and Right is Right, 1999
Through a Looking Glass, 1999
Déjà vu, 2000
Don’t Think About It, 2000
Fog, 2001
Scratch Hither, 2002
Blue 2, 2003
Over My Shoulder, 2003
Play dead; Real Time, 2003
The Left Hand Can’t see that the Right Hand is Blind,
2004
The Left Hand doesn’t care what the Right Hand isn’t
Doing, 2004
The Right Hand doesn’t care what the Left Hand isn’t
Doing, 2004
24 Hour Psycho Back and Forth and To and Fro, 2008
Ever after all in the light, 2008
Fucking Frogs, 2008
Iles Flotantes, 2008
Looking Down with his Black, Black ‘Ee, 2008
Natural history on the Altar, 2008
Natural history on the Parapet, 2008
Once upon a time without the sun, 2008
One night with an old soul, 2008
One night without light, 2008
The right not to be tortured, 2008
Travail with my donkeys, 2008
Unnatural History, 2008
Video Diptych, 2008
k.364, 2010
New Colour Empire, 2010
Phantom, 2010
Henry Rebel, 2011
k.364 – installation, 2011
Phantom, 2011
Spiral, 2011
Molotov Action (Jerusalem Stone), 2012
The End Of Civilisation, 2012
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 7
The Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
‘I approve that my art has purpose. I want to have an effect during this time in which people are so helpless
and needy.’ Käthe Kollwitz, diary, November 1922
The graphic artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was admitted to the Preußische Akademie der
Künste (Prussian Academy of Arts) in 1919, as its first female member. The National Socialists forced her to
resign her membership as early as 1933 and banned her from exhibiting as of 1936.
The Käthe Kollwitz Prize, an award for fine artists, was established by the Deutsche Akademie der Künste zu
Berlin (GDR) in 1960 with the aim of honouring an individual work or an entire œuvre. Since the first award of
the prize to Karl Erich Müller, this distinction has been intended both for artists who have made a name for
themselves nationally and internationally among an art-loving public, as well as for artists who have worked
and made an impact in seclusion, far from the art scene and the pulsating art market. A strength in the art of
Käthe Kollwitz lays in its ability to understand and accept others and that which is different.
The awarding of the Käthe Kollwitz Prize occurs annually and is always decided by a new jury, composed of
members from the AdK’s section of fine arts. The prize is endowed with €12,000. Accompanying the award, the
Akademie der Künste organises an exhibition for the prizewinner and publishes a small catalogue. Since 1992
the Käthe Kollwitz Prize has been co-financed by the Kreissparkasse Köln as the founding sponsor of the
Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln.
Prize winners
1960 Karl Erich Müller
1961 Arno Mohr
1962 Sella Hasse
1964 Herbert Tucholski
1965 Fritz Duda
1966 Fritz Dähn
1967 Otto Nagel
1968 Willi Sitte
1969 Theo Balden
1970 Gerhard Kettner
1971 Kurt Querner
1972 Herbert Sandberg
1973 René Graetz
1974 Wieland Förster
1975 Werner Stötzer
1976 Harald Metzkes
1977 Horst Zickelbein
1978 Dieter Goltzsche
1979 Wilfried Fitzenreiter
1980 Werner Tübke
1981 Elizabeth Shaw
1982 Hans Vent
1983 Sabina Grzimek
1984 Manfred Böttcher
1985 Joachim John
1986 Gerhard Goßmann
1987 Max Uhlig
1988 Christa Sammler
1989 Claus Weidensdorfer
1990 Konrad Knebel
1991 Manfred Butzmann
1992 Lothar Böhme
1993 Martin Assig
1994 Karla Woisnitza
1995 Micha Ullman
1996 Martin Kippenberger
1997 Astrid Klein
1998 Miriam Cahn
1999 Mark Lammert
2000 Svetlana Kopystiansky
2001 Jürgen Schön
2002 Renate Anger
2003 Horst Münch
2004 Peter Weibel
2005 Lutz Dammbeck
2006 Thomas Eller
2007 Hede Bühl
2008 Gustav Kluge
2009 Ulrike Grossarth
2010 Mona Hatoum
2011 Janet Cardiff &
George Bures Miller
Douglas Gordon. Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012
Akademie der Künste // Press information // page 8
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