ArtFocus 5 | Archive » Douglas Gordon

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Douglas Gordon // Pirate Radio (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, 29 November 1947)

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Douglas Gordon Born in Scotland, 1966; lives in New York, Glasgow and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions: Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006), Fundació Jean Miro, Barcelona (2006), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007), DAAD Gallery, Berlin (2008); recent group exhibitions: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007), Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv (2008).

For “Artfocus 5,” the well-known Scottish artist Douglas Gordon decided to create a new work that is a paradigm of site-specificity. To this end, Gordon initiated an uninterrupted web radio broadcasting of the unforgettable moment on November 29, 1947, when the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of Resolution 181, which led to the declaration of Israeli independence. Four loudspeakers will be situated in four different spots in the exhibition pavilion, constantly relaying the historical broadcast. Gordon’s work employs a range of mediums (cinema, photography, text) to explore memory, identity, perception and meaning. The vote, which is present as both a structural and a metaphorical device, is used to suggest another state of coexistence. By compelling us to reencounter the all-too-familiar and the wilfully forgotten, Gordon exposes the gap between our vague and distorted memories and between what we may call “the truth.” His emphatic presentation underscores the manner in which Gordon does not only “sculpt” matter, but also time itself.

Christoph Keller