DOUGLAS GORDON
EVERYTHING IS NOTHING WITHOUT ITS REFLECTION
A Photographic Pantomime
Museum Folkwang
Museumplatz 1 - Essen
30 November 2013–2 March 2014
At Museum Folkwang, Essen Scottish artist Douglas Gordon is setting up a fascinating cabinet of pictures consisting of 180 photographs. On show for the first time in Germany, Douglas Gordon’s work Everything is Nothing without Its Reflection – A Photographic Pantomime (2013) offers a very intimate view of his life, a view which Gordon is now sharing with the visitors in Essen.
A sea of blossoms, the leaves on a tree, an empty flat, a plate with a prawn kebab, friends at a party, a newborn child, a child at play, a child with a mask, the whole panoply of life is revealed before our very eyes. In amongst it a finger covered with gold paint, a magic finger, the artist’s hand? The artist places 180 framed photographs on the walls of a room at Museum Folkwang.
After a while, many of the pictures in this cabinet of pictures merge with our own memories. In between them, the image of the viewer, the image of another viewer or the image of the room. How so? Because 180 mirrors have been placed between the photographs. A room composed of images, past and current images, orchestrated by the viewer’s gaze which, in the process of looking and moving, becomes part of the work. Gordon enters in on a dialogue with the viewer. The artist, too, is a viewer, behind the camera, choosing his images. The artist’s portrait also crops up amongst the photographs, and next to it, our own reflections, then, in the adjacent frame, a skull—the circle of life. In Everything is Nothing Without its Reflection – A Photographic Pantomine life takes on the appearance of a play and we are right in the thick of it.
EVERYTHING IS NOTHING WITHOUT ITS REFLECTION
A Photographic Pantomime
Museum Folkwang
Museumplatz 1 - Essen
30 November 2013–2 March 2014
At Museum Folkwang, Essen Scottish artist Douglas Gordon is setting up a fascinating cabinet of pictures consisting of 180 photographs. On show for the first time in Germany, Douglas Gordon’s work Everything is Nothing without Its Reflection – A Photographic Pantomime (2013) offers a very intimate view of his life, a view which Gordon is now sharing with the visitors in Essen.
A sea of blossoms, the leaves on a tree, an empty flat, a plate with a prawn kebab, friends at a party, a newborn child, a child at play, a child with a mask, the whole panoply of life is revealed before our very eyes. In amongst it a finger covered with gold paint, a magic finger, the artist’s hand? The artist places 180 framed photographs on the walls of a room at Museum Folkwang.
After a while, many of the pictures in this cabinet of pictures merge with our own memories. In between them, the image of the viewer, the image of another viewer or the image of the room. How so? Because 180 mirrors have been placed between the photographs. A room composed of images, past and current images, orchestrated by the viewer’s gaze which, in the process of looking and moving, becomes part of the work. Gordon enters in on a dialogue with the viewer. The artist, too, is a viewer, behind the camera, choosing his images. The artist’s portrait also crops up amongst the photographs, and next to it, our own reflections, then, in the adjacent frame, a skull—the circle of life. In Everything is Nothing Without its Reflection – A Photographic Pantomine life takes on the appearance of a play and we are right in the thick of it.
