artist
Douglas Gordon
UK / Germany
Douglas Gordon (b. 1966, Glasgow, Scotland) studied sculpture and environmental art at the Glasgow School of Art, and cinema and film at the Slade School of Fine Art, London.
Working across mediums and disciplines, Gordon investigates moral and ethical questions, mental and physical states, as well as collective memory and selfhood. Using literature, folklore, and iconic Hollywood films in addition to his own footage, drawings, and writings, he distorts time and language in order to disorient and challenge. Gordon has won prestigious art prizes, including the Turner Prize in 1996.
Douglas Gordon
Instruction (it doesn’t matter who I am, I just want to talk to you), 1992
Instruction Number 3c (from the momentum you hear these words, until you kiss someone with brown eyes), 1993
What would you like to know, 2018
Audio installation, variable dimensions.
Formally, the artworks consist of nothing more than an unsolicited telephone call. A voice attempts to direct the listener or to initiate a conversation, ignoring all social convention, immediately asking odd, embarrassing or personal questions. As you listen to the words, they might prompt your own memory, sending you on an imaginative mental journey.
I’m interested in the fine line between my intentions and the perceptions of others; that moment when someone encounters something and realizes that there is more to it than meets the eye. (Douglas Gordon)
Working across mediums and disciplines, Gordon investigates moral and ethical questions, mental and physical states, as well as collective memory and individuality. These works are part of a small series of phone-call pieces that reflect his ability to make the maximum impact with the most minimal of interventions.
In his text works, Gordon poignantly exemplifies the concept of liminality. The works operate precisely at the thresholds between anonymity and intimacy, self and other, past and present—challenging audiences to navigate and reconsider the transitional spaces of their relational worlds.
© 2025 Studio lost but found / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2024. Courtesy Gagosian.
