Entering the Hirshhorn Museum’s Douglas Gordon exhibition is tantamount to making one’s way through a carnival funhouse. Scattered amongst ghastly images and film are notices throughout the galleries that urge viewers to tread carefully, and be wary that “this exhibit contains mirrors and extreme darkness.” Gordon fills the Hirshhorn with photo and video installations that are clever, absurd and unnerving.
The exhibition, which will remain at the Hirshhorn until May 9, is the first American survey of Gordon. The Scottish artist is known primarily for video installations, most notably “24 Hour Psycho,” a projection of the Hitchcock classic dramatically slowed to the duration of an entire day and played at a frame speed of two frames per second. This piece is scheduled to begin Friday at 5:30 p.m. and continue straight through the night until 5:30 Saturday morning.
This work, along with several others, displays Gordon’s fixation on classic American cinema, a common element in his work. Another installation, “Dj vu,” is the projection of a scene from the black-and-white film “D.O.A” repeated adjacently three times on a wall-length screen, with a three-minute delay between each projection. “Deja Vu” does not have as strong of an effect as “Through a Looking Glass,” which features the Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver” projected at opposite sides of a room. The famous “You talkin’ to me?” scene with Robert DiNiro is played at a three-second delay, making it seem as though DiNiro is conversing with his own clone rather than a camera lens.
But the most striking installation is “Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake),” a two-sided screen that plays the films “The Exorcist” and “Song of Bernadette” concurrently. The black-and-white images of “Song of Bernadette” flicker across the scenes of “The Exorcist” like ghosts, as the religious conflicts of both films echo each other.
Another apparent fixation of Gordon’s is the alteration of a person’s skin. Images ofcertain tattoos, scars and other deformations recur throughout the exhibition. “Punishment Exercise in Gothic: Found Hi-Lo – Because I Wanted To” features the artist’s face with a lightning-shaped scar above the eyebrow reminiscent of Harry Potter, while “Tattoo (I)” and “Tattoo (II)” feature an arm tattooed with the phrase “Trust Me.” An entire room of the exhibit, perhaps irrelevantly, is devoted to 11 color photographs titled “Three Inches (Black),” which feature various poses of a hand with three inches of the index finger painted black. But the most drastic alteration occurs in the photo “Monster,” which is a shocking and clever double self-portrait. The artist appears normal on the left but hideously disfigured on the right, until closer inspection reveals the changes to be a temporary result of scotch tape.
A third aspect of the show focuses on installations and photographs of simple textual sayings. The first of these is “A Few Words on the Nature of Relationships,” which proclaims, “Close your eyes, open your mouth” across the gallery walls. Mirrors sport faintly written, cryptic text such as “Retrace Your Steps. Remember Tomorrow,” and “I’ve Changed. You’ve Changed.” “Psycho Hitchhiker”, a crowd favorite, is a black-and-white photo that features a man on the divider between two highways displaying a sign reading “Psycho” to the passing cars.
The most outstanding installation of the entire exhibit, however, is a surprising display of words titled “30 Second Text.” Patrons enter a room that is illuminated by a single light bulb hung over a paragraph of white text on the black wall. In the dim light, the text describes a French experiment in which scientists tried to communicate with the severed head of a man who had died by guillotine. After they shout the man’s name – Languille – he raised his eyes twice and clearly comprehended the situation before finally lowering his eyelids and passing away 30 seconds later. Suddenly, the single light bulb is extinguished, and the room’s occupants are plunged into an uncomfortable period of darkness. When the light finally returns, one is able to read the last line of the text, which states, “On average, it takes a person 25 to 30 seconds to read the above text.” By far the cleverest of all of Gordon’s installations, “30 Second Text” eerily allows the viewer to experience a degree of the man’s sudden expiration.
Douglas Gordon’s strength lies in his ability to “sculpt” time, transforming classic films into the picturesque while invoking a slow-moving suspense. His exhibition is a veritable Jekyll and Hyde of contradictions – clever and creepy, monster and human, darkness and light.
The Hirshorn Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The exhibit will run through May 9.
