Stan Douglas

Past Imperfect
Works 1986 - 2007

September 15, 2007 – January 6, 2008
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart & Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

From the September 15, 2007 until January 6, 2008, the Württembergischer Kunstverein and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will be presenting within a space covering 4,000 sq. metres the first comprehensive exhibition of the works of Canadian artist Stan Douglas. The exhibition will encompass fourteen video and film installations, as well as numerous photographs.

Born in Vancouver, in 1960, Stan Douglas ranks among the most important of contemporary artists. He has participated in the Documenta three times (1992, 1997, 2002) as well as in the Venice Biennale (1990, 2001, 2005) and his works have been shown at numerous additional biennales and prominent exhibition houses. It is in Stuttgart that his principal works of the last twenty years will be shown and experienced for the first time in a large-scale show. Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ (Directors of the Württembergischer Kunstverein) developed the exhibition in close collaboration with Stan Douglas.

As no other artist, Douglas has been able to enlarge in both a sensual and intellectual way the experience of the cinematic and museum space. With recourse to the intellectual, cultural and ideological traditions of modernity, his works exemplify a critical revision of Western history, past and present. It is the failure of modern utopias and the “ghosts” they spawned which form some of the artist’s central themes.

Behind almost all the works is an examination of a particular place – Potsdam, Vancouver, Cuba or Detroit –, the respective histories of which are reflected along the various literary, filmic or musical references the artist uses: as, for example, E.T.A. Hoffman’s “Der Sandmann” (Der Sandmann), Melville’s “The Confidence-Man” (Journey into Fear), the Grimm fairy tales or Marx’s “Capital” (both in Suspiria).

Both his most recent video installations, Klatsassin and Video, revolve around two fields of analysis which Douglas has reflected since the 1980s and that substantially shape his oeuvre: the emergence of Western empires in the “New World”, on the one hand and the work of Samuel Beckett on the other. For instance, Douglas already curated an exhibition on Beckett’s “Teleplays” in 1988. His recently produced video installation, Video, refers to Beckett’s film “Film” starring Buster Keaton, and to Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial”.

Taking place at two locations, the exhibition is conceived as one project and is to be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue.

Opening: 14th September, 2007
Press conference: 13th September, 2007, 11 am

Curators
Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler

in cooperation with
Sean Rainbird, Gudrun Inboden

A joint project of
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Addresses

Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Schlossplatz 2
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 - 22 33 70
Fax: +49 (0)711 - 29 36 17
http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse 30-32
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 – 47 04 00
Fax: +49 (0)711 – 23 69 983
http://www.staatsgalerie.de


Contact Press
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Yvonne Mielatz
Schlossplatz 2
D-70173 Stuttgart
Fon: +49 (0)711 - 22 33 721
Fax: +49 (0)711 - 29 36 17
mielatz@wkv-stuttgart.de

Download press material: http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/press


Sponsored by
The Ministry for Science, Research and Art BW
The Embassy of Canada, Berlin

Stan Douglas at The Studio Museum in Harlem
Inconsolable Memories
November 15, 2006 ­ March 18, 2007


The Studio Museum in Harlem presents Stan Douglas: Inconsolable Memories, on view from November 15, 2006 ­ March 18, 2007. With an international reputation for his photographs and film and video installations, Canadian artist Stan Douglas ­ represented by David Zwirner ­ uses innovative techniques to blur the boundaries between visual art, cinema, and television. For its presentation at The Studio Museum in Harlem, this exhibition consists of film work and a series of photographs inspired by his recent trips to Cuba.

The film work, Inconsolable Memories, presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale, is a tribute to the 1968 Cuban cinematic masterpiece Memories of Underdevelopment, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Alea¹s film portrayed the alienation of a character named Sergio, a bourgeois intellectual swept up in the changing social climate of Cuba following the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis of 1962. Douglas¹ film transports Sergio to 1980 and the Mariel Boatlift, when Fidel Castro allowed thousands of Cubans to escape the island on a procession of boats arriving from Florida. Through Douglas¹ use of two 16mm loops projected simultaneously onto one screen, past and present overlap. The photographs, shot over the past two years, describe Havana¹s recycled urban architecture: villas are now schools; banks are now motorcycle lots. Immaculate and technically flawless, the prints are in stark contrast to the ruin and entropy they describe.

Both documentary and fictional footage combine and recombine to unravel the experience of film and confront each viewer with existential questions about time. Douglas involves viewers in an absorbing phenomenon in which the usual signposts are shifted, things veer in and out of synchronicity, and we can safely lose our bearings. Ultimately, Douglas¹ works speculate in a new way about how contemporary consciousness is shaped by history and the moving image by burrowing into the technology of film and projection and finding there intimations of our future.

This exhibition is accompanied by a 150-page, full-color catalogue published by the Joslyn Art Museum and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the University of British Columbia. The catalogue, edited by Scott Watson and Cindy Richmond, includes reproductions of the Cuba photographs, Inconsolable Memories film stills, and the Inconsolable Memoriesscreenplay and excerpts, along with texts by Stan Douglas, Sven Lüttiken, and Philip Monk.

Stan Douglas: Inconsolable Memories is co-produced by the Morris and Helen Art Gallery, the University of British Columbia and the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. The exhibition is presented at The Studio Museum in Harlem with the support of The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and The Audain Foundation.


ADDRESS
The Studio Museum in Harlem is located at 144 West 125th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Lenox Avenue.
Subway: A, B, C, D, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 to 125th Street. Bus: M-2, M-7, M-10, M-100, M-101, M-102 or BX-15.

HOURS
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Phone: 212 864 4500 www.studiomuseum.org