STAN DOUGLAS

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2006

KLATSASSIN
November 24, 2006 – January 28, 2007
Hauptraum



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, Secession 2006


The Canadian artist Stan Douglas, whose works have been shown at prestigious international art institutions such as Documenta and the Venice Biennial since the mid-1980s, is known for his highly complex and technically perfect film and video works which continually extend the possibilities of the medium in order to construct non-linear narratives and astonishing modalities of time. The conceptual and formal precision of Douglas’s films is also characteristic of his photographs.



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, Secession 2006


Klatsassin, the name of a Tsilhqot’in chief, is the title of Stan Douglas’s latest film, which will be shown in full for the first time at the Secession. Set in the nineteenth century in the forests of Canada’s Cariboo Mountains, the plot begins immediately after the historical events involving hostilities between the area’s native inhabitants and settlers. At the time, the discovery of gold was attracting people from a variety of places to the region.



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, Secession 2006


Klatsassin refers to Akira Kurosawa’s legendary film Rashomon (1950), famous for its multiple, contradictory portrayals of a murder. In Douglas’s high-definition video, too, various individuals describe the same scene from their own point of view – a man is found dead on a deserted path in the forest – until it is impossible to know what has actually happened. Different threads of plot and time, changes of perspective, flashbacks and insertions turn an otherwise quite simple plot into a dense, many-layered whole which can never be totally grasped – not least because of the seemingly endless combinatory possibilities for combining sequences of scenes, which only start to repeat themselves after six days. The variations of interlaced plots develop like composed music – similarly animated by repetitions and motifs – which is why Douglas also refers to the film as a “Dub Western.”



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, Secession 2006


Who saw what when? How sure can one be of what one has seen, of remembered images that change with time? How to assess the credibility of reports by others? Klatsassin is about the impossibility of distilling truth or objectivity from images, language, and music, underlining the constructed and fragmentary nature of all experience and identity.



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin: Character Portraits, 2006, black-and-white photograph, 22 x17", Thief (Michael Eklund)


In the side aisles of the Hauptraum, two series of photographs by Stan Douglas will be shown that are closely connected with the film but which constitute groups of works in their own right. The first shows deserted but obviously inhabited landscapes and pictures of interiors in British Columbia. The photographs, some of which approach the format of a cinema screen, do not offer a general view of Canada’s wide open landscape – they describe specific places that can be found on the map: Maritime Worker's Hall, Vancouver, McLeod's Books, Quesnel Forks, Stanley Cemetery, Barkerville, Mason's Lodge, Spences Bridge, Walhachin. The second series comprises portraits of the figures from Klatsassin in black and white against an empty background. Here, too, in spite of the detailed, apparently objective reproduction, many questions remain unanswered: Who is being represented? The film characters, individual personalities, or actors in a film by Stan Douglas?



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin: Character Portraits, 2006, black-and-white photograph, 22 x17", Thief (Michael Eklund)


PUBLICATION

STAN DOUGLAS 88 pages, 56 color illustrations, 11 black/white illustrations authors: Ariane Beyn, Stan Douglas Secession 2008, ISBN 978-3-902592026 Distribution: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König ___________________ available in the shop

Stan Douglas, Stanley Cemetery, 2006


STAN DOUGLAS, born in 1960 in Vancouver, lives and works in Vancouver.
EXHIBITIONS (Selection): 2005 Stan Douglas: Inconsolable Memories, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; 2005 La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; 2004 Cuba, David Zwirner, New York; 2002 Stan Douglas, The Serpentine Gallery, London; 2002 Documenta 11, Kassel; 2001 La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; 1999 Stan Douglas, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton; The Power Plant, Toronto; De Pont Museum, Tilburg; MOCA, Los Angeles; 1999 Double Vision, Stan Douglas and Douglas Gordon, DIA Center for the Arts, New York; 1999 Stan Douglas: Pursuit, Fear, Catastrophe: Ruskin, B.C., Fondation Cartier, Paris; 1997 Documenta X, Kassel; 1997 Skulptur. Projekte in Münster, Muenster; 1996 Stan Douglas, Museum Haus Lange & Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld; 1995 Evening and Hors-champs, The Renaissance Society, Chicago; 1994 Stan Douglas and Diana Thater, Witte de With, Rotterdam;1992 Documenta IX, Kassel; 1991 Monodramas, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris; 1988 Samuel Beckett: Teleplays (curated by Stan Douglas), Vancouver Art Gallery; 1986 Onomatopoeia, Western Front, Vancouver.



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, 2006, still from a color video projection, 890 variations, each with an average duration of approximately 5 minutes, total running time 73 hours



Stan Douglas, Klatsassin, 2006, still from a color video projection, 890 variations, each with an average duration of approximately 5 minutes, total running time 73 hours


EXHIBITION DISCUSSION



Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006, 6.30 p.m., Preview
with Stan Douglas and Alexander Horvath
Organized by the Friends of the Secession


Installation shots: Pez Hejduk



In cooperation with “Monat der Fotografie“
The exhibition is supported by: Hotel Altstadt Vienna

The exhibitions are realized through support of:
Erste Bank – Partner of the Secession
Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur
Wien Kultur
Friends of the Secession

JUDITH HOPF    MIDORI MITAMURA

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2006

For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Urte Schmitt-Ulms
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at