In a similar gesture, Douglas Gordon’s Under Darkness, Between Shadows (2000), hovered over the city. I first heard rumours of this work in the 1990s, and included it in Justified Sinners (co-edited with Ross Birrell, 2002), an anthology surveying the archaeology of Scottish counter-culture, of which Gordon’s darkness marked an endpoint. ‘Under Darkness, Between Shadows’ is a proposal to […]
In our current state of governmental chaos, I hark back to a surprisingly overlooked statement by President Trump’s White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. After completing his medical assessment of Trump, Jackson stated, and I paraphrase, that Trump was highly unusual in that each day he begins anew, unfettered by memory or attention to consequences […]
When Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno made Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait, filmed at a La Liga match on April 23, 2005, they were not to know what would happen in the 2006 World Cup final. In Gordon and Parreno’s film, the pre-headbutt Zidane was like Achilles in Homer’s Iliad – the focal point, the […]
The hardy Trojans feel a cold shiver go through them, Their prince from the depths of his heart beseeches The god: “Phoebus, you always had pity for Troy And her troubles, it was you who steadied Paris’ aim and directed the arrow Into Achilles, you who were pilot As I entered sea after sea, skirting […]