Douglas Gordon
Monster Reborn, 2002
Transmounted colour photograph
88.6 x 129.6 cms
34 7/8 x 51 1/8 ins
34 7/8 x 51 1/8 ins
12308
Provenance
Patrick Painter EditionsPrivate Collection
Exhibitions
Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark, Reality Check, 2008-2009 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, p. 93).Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Through the Looking Brain: A Swiss Collection of Conceptual Photography, 2011-2012 (illustrated in colour, p. 214). This exhibition later travelled to St. Gallen, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. (another from the edition exhibited)
Transmounted colour photograph, in artist's frame Executed 1996-2002. This work is from the edition of 11 plus 4 artist's proofs. Gordon uses doubles and opposites in his work to question...
Transmounted colour photograph, in artist's frame
Executed 1996-2002.
This work is from the edition of 11 plus 4 artist's proofs.
Gordon uses doubles and opposites in his work to question ideas about good and evil, positive and negative, male and female. As a Scottish artist, he often uses his own image to explore the 'dual' identity of Scottish culture, as exemplified in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Monster Reborn is a double self-portrait, and is the same photograph used in the artist's 1996 work Monster, except here the image is reversed so that the distorted face is on the left instead of the right. Gordon has used sticky tape to distort his face, making him virtually unrecognisable from the sober-looking man on the right. The viewer is thus prompted to wonder if both states can co-exist in one body, and who came first, the monster or the artist?
"Mirrors are also relevant to Gordon's approach to exhibiting his work Monster (National Galleries website, 2014). There are currently three versions of this work; a photograph, a video recording of the tape gradually transforming his face, and Monster Reborn. In Monster Reborn, Gordon has mirrored the photograph of the portraits, reversing the monster from being placed right, to sitting left of Gordon's un-taped face. This is a significant alteration in respect to the double because this one detail changes the experience and interpretation of the images. Our eyes naturally scan from left to right in the western world; we read this way and have therefore been conditioned to process the world from left, to right. Our judgment is also then altered as the first thing we see on the left will be acknowledged as the 'original' and then continuing scanning right will be seen in response to what was seen before. By mirroring the image, Gordon has highlighted that there is no hierarchy between the two portraits, and they can be read as either preceding the other. This poses the question as to which is the real monster because the act of mirroring the image emphasises doubt as to which is the monster as described in the title.
The double becomes a threat to the original in Monster Reborn, because either portrait can be mistaken as the real version. A mirror or photograph is the only way we are able to see ourselves as the other, which can pose the biggest threat if our mirror image transforms from an exact copy, to a double that is the same, but different. The distinctive boarders between the real and the other become blurred, challenging the viewers' decision as to which state is the original.
Gordon's work Monster undoubtedly alludes to a sense of the double. I feel it also goes further than this and demonstrates the paradox of the double; two things being the same, yet not the same. The original and the double may look and act the same, but ultimately they must exist separately. Monster has produced a double presence through the juxtaposition of the subjects and the context in which they are presented. By duplicating an image of himself and manipulating his face in one of the photos, Gordon has created a means of communicating motifs of the double including identical twins, a doppelganger and the use of the mirror. Each one of these have strong connections to the psychoanalytical idea of the double, as well as the literal sense of a doubled entity and therefore Monster effectively echo's the double in multiple forms."
Eleanore Booth, Has Douglas Gordon Created a Sense of the Double in his work Monster, 1997?, 2014.
Others prints of this work are in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The National Galleries of Scotland; and SMK National Gallery of Denmark.
British Photography. The Hyman Collection
Executed 1996-2002.
This work is from the edition of 11 plus 4 artist's proofs.
Gordon uses doubles and opposites in his work to question ideas about good and evil, positive and negative, male and female. As a Scottish artist, he often uses his own image to explore the 'dual' identity of Scottish culture, as exemplified in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Monster Reborn is a double self-portrait, and is the same photograph used in the artist's 1996 work Monster, except here the image is reversed so that the distorted face is on the left instead of the right. Gordon has used sticky tape to distort his face, making him virtually unrecognisable from the sober-looking man on the right. The viewer is thus prompted to wonder if both states can co-exist in one body, and who came first, the monster or the artist?
"Mirrors are also relevant to Gordon's approach to exhibiting his work Monster (National Galleries website, 2014). There are currently three versions of this work; a photograph, a video recording of the tape gradually transforming his face, and Monster Reborn. In Monster Reborn, Gordon has mirrored the photograph of the portraits, reversing the monster from being placed right, to sitting left of Gordon's un-taped face. This is a significant alteration in respect to the double because this one detail changes the experience and interpretation of the images. Our eyes naturally scan from left to right in the western world; we read this way and have therefore been conditioned to process the world from left, to right. Our judgment is also then altered as the first thing we see on the left will be acknowledged as the 'original' and then continuing scanning right will be seen in response to what was seen before. By mirroring the image, Gordon has highlighted that there is no hierarchy between the two portraits, and they can be read as either preceding the other. This poses the question as to which is the real monster because the act of mirroring the image emphasises doubt as to which is the monster as described in the title.
The double becomes a threat to the original in Monster Reborn, because either portrait can be mistaken as the real version. A mirror or photograph is the only way we are able to see ourselves as the other, which can pose the biggest threat if our mirror image transforms from an exact copy, to a double that is the same, but different. The distinctive boarders between the real and the other become blurred, challenging the viewers' decision as to which state is the original.
Gordon's work Monster undoubtedly alludes to a sense of the double. I feel it also goes further than this and demonstrates the paradox of the double; two things being the same, yet not the same. The original and the double may look and act the same, but ultimately they must exist separately. Monster has produced a double presence through the juxtaposition of the subjects and the context in which they are presented. By duplicating an image of himself and manipulating his face in one of the photos, Gordon has created a means of communicating motifs of the double including identical twins, a doppelganger and the use of the mirror. Each one of these have strong connections to the psychoanalytical idea of the double, as well as the literal sense of a doubled entity and therefore Monster effectively echo's the double in multiple forms."
Eleanore Booth, Has Douglas Gordon Created a Sense of the Double in his work Monster, 1997?, 2014.
Others prints of this work are in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The National Galleries of Scotland; and SMK National Gallery of Denmark.
British Photography. The Hyman Collection