ART CITIES:Zurich-Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon makes videos, installations, photographs and text pieces, using both found and original material, in an attempt to lay bare the ambiguities of human life. In Gordon’s world nothing is good or evil, but both at the same time. Gordon’s religious upbringing made him deeply aware of human beliefs and he uses these throughout his work. In addition he explores the complexities of the human mind.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo” Galerie Eva Presenhuber Archive
The first exhibition featuring the new film installation “I Had Nowhere To Go“, by Douglas Gordon is on presentation at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich. The work is an intimate portrait of Jonas Mekas, the legendary film-maker, artist and poet Jonas Mekas, a leading figure of Avant-Garde and independent cinema and among the remaining few to have escaped and survived Nazi persecution. Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas left Lithuania because of war. En route, his train was stopped in Germany and they were imprisoned in a labor camp in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, for eight months. The brothers escaped and were detained near the Danish border where they hid on a farm for two months until the end of the war. After the war, Mekas studied philosophy at the University of Mainz and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S.. Two months after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and in 1964 the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue. During all this time he continued writing poetry and making films. To this date he has published more than 20 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. Mekas’ film “The Brig” was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963. Other films include “Walden”, “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania”, “Flaming Creatures”, “Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol”, “Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas” and “Sleepless Nights Stories”. Since 2000, Mekas has expanded his work into the area of film installations. For his new film project and the installative video work Douglas Gordon has recorded Jonas Mekas reading from “I Had Nowhere To Go“, his published diaries and from here he assembled the most important steps in his life and the most emotional situations. Douglas Gordon has composed a few pictures among the black on the screen and in the room.
Info: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Maag Areal, Zahnradstrasse 21, Zurich, Duration: 5/11/16-21/1/17, Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, https://presenhuber.com
