Author Description

Tel Aviv Museum of Art is hosting I am also... Douglas Gordon, a major exhibition of one of the leading figures on the contemporary art scene. The Berlin-based artist (b. 1966, Glasgow) is an outstanding personality, whose ties to Israeli culture have become stronger in recent years. Douglas Gordon is a "film player," who uses cinema and video as a medium, always installing it with a “sculptural” outlook. While he is best known for his films and complex large-scale video installations, his art also encompasses photographs, texts and objects. Gordon draws inspiration from cinema, literature, art, popular culture and his own history, wavering between personal and collective memory. He explores the existential themes of life and death, good and evil, innocence and guilt and temptation and fear; the exhibition thus proves to be a portrait of the artist’s obsessions. This survey exhibition provides an overview of Gordon's work from the past twenty years. Some of the pieces presented have become iconic, such as 24 Hour Psycho (1993), 30 seconds text. (1996), and Play Dead; Real Time (2003). Others are references that maintain an undeniable appeal, such as Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006). More recent works on view are k.364 (2010), which masterfully connects the present to a dark past, Henry Rebel (2011), and The End of Civilisation (2012). The progressive display will be on view in the new Herta and Paul Amir Building and the Museum's main building. A defining feature of Gordon's approach is his ability to animate the architecture itself. Gordon will install nearly 100 text works – words and phrases open to interpretation - within the Light Fall of the Herta and Paul Amir Building, attesting to his enthrallment with language and its multiple meanings.