Douglas Gordon Archives

From Death to Death and Other Small Tales

28 March 2013 at 6pm

For our March event, we will be back on home territory visiting From Death to Death and Other Small Tales: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D. Daskalopoulos Collection at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One.

This remarkable exhibition brings together works from one of the foremost private holdings of modern and contemporary art, the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, with major works from the Gallery of Modern Art’s collection.

From Death to Death includes a range of works that focus on the body as a theme in 20th and 21st-century art practice, as well as providing a new context for both collections, with artworks often staged in surprising juxtapositions.

Since 1994, private collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos has amassed a body of iconic modern and contemporary artworks that collectively express a personal vision and sensibility. Artists represented within the exhibition include Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Gober, Paul McCarthy, Ernesto Neto, Mike Kelley and Sarah Lucas.

Keith Hartley, Chief Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art, will join us in to discuss selected works in the exhibition and will give an insight into the process of collaborating with a private collector.

What you see is where you’re at

28 January 2010 at 6pm

Our first event of 2010 is What you see is where you’re at which forms part of a complete re-hang of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. The re-hang brings together new displays from the permanent collection, which dates from around 1900, alongside commissions from leading Scottish and international contemporary artists in innovative and often unexpected combinations. Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries, has described the re-hang as ‘a new beginning, not about throwing out old art but new ways of experiencing it.’

The artworks are showcased in thematic rooms, dedicated to solo artists or individual works, as well as to artistic movements. Highlights include a large-scale work by Martin Boyce, Electric Trees and Telephone Booth Conversations; a two-room display curated by the artist Callum Innes; a room dedicated to German artist Kitty Kraus and works by Douglas Gordon.

This will be a chance for us to find out the ideas behind a major re-hang in what has been described as ‘the biggest shake-up in over two decades.’

Joining us in these discussions will be Alice Strang, Senior Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art.

Douglas Gordon: Superhumanatural

30 November 2006 at 6pm

‘I provide the board, the pieces and the dice, but you are the ones that have to play. ‘

Douglas Gordon

We will be visiting the much-anticipated retrospective exhibition by Douglas Gordon, one of Scotland’s most celebrated contemporary artists. And it doesnt disappoint.

The Royal Scottish Academy Building has been transformed beyond recognition with specially constructed blacked-out spaces, TV monitors and installations where the familiar becomes unfamiliar. Superhumanatural is Gordon’s first retrospective exhibition to be held in Scotland and features key works including 24 Hour Psycho (1993), Through a Looking Glass (1999) and 30 Seconds Text (1996).

Born in Glasgow in 1966, Douglas Gordon was among a number of Glasgow-based artists who embraced a more conceptually-orientated art in the 1990s. His deployment of pre-existing material, most notably in his use of Hitchcock’s iconic film in his work 24 Hour Psycho, attracted particular attention. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1998. Earlier this year, he had a mid-career survey exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Working in video, film, photography, audio and text-based works, he explores themes of trust, guilt, confession, deception and doubling. Many of his works are based on dichotomies – good and evil, life and death, birth and death, perception and memory and seduction and violence.

This is a great opportunity to see a major exhibition of his work. We will be joined by Keith Hartley, curator of the exhibition and Chief Curator and Deputy to the Director at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Keith, who was the exhibition curator, has been working on the show for a few years and will be able to provide us with a fascinating insight into the works and the man himself.

Evergreen

30 June 2005 at 6pm

Situated in Edinburgh’s beautiful botanic gardens, Inverleith House is renowned amongst international artists as one of the foremost contemporary art spaces in Britain. It has undergone extensive refurbishment in the last couple of years, which, as some of you will be aware, has prevented us from having an event there until now.

Director Paul Nesbitt (himself a unique hybrid: passionate botanist, crossed with enthusiastic contemporary art curator) will be talking us through the current show, Evergreen, which brings together eighteen of the artists who have had solo shows at Inverleith in the past couple of decades. In a microcosmic demonstration of the format at Inverleith, Paul has juxtaposed minimalism and conceptualism with beautiful botanical drawings, calling on an extraordinary array of international heavyweights and Scottish stars to contribute works. These include Lawrence Weiner, Agnes Martin, Carl Andre, Richard Wright, Douglas Gordon and Callum Innes to name but a few.

Paul is an inspiring and entertaining speaker, so it will be very rewarding to hear about his vision for Inverleith House and his dealings with these artists over the years.