There Is Strong Shadow Where There Is Much Light: Douglas Gordon’s “In My Shadow” at ARoS – Aarhus Kunstmuseum

Chiara Moioli, Mousse, January 22, 2020
Conceived as an attempt to distance himself from spectacle and notoriety, In My Shadow at ARoS – Aarhus Kunstmuseum, one of Douglas Gordon’s largest survey shows in Europe to date (curated by Lise Pennington), features works that manifest a certain wish to debunk various aspects of the artist’s most delicate, gentle productions—those susceptible to being overshadowed by Gordon’s own blazing spotlight. Upon first noting the exhibition’s title, I couldn’t help but link it, in an ascending parabola, to Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), as it sounds like a hymn to second acts, a celebration of “pictures that got small.” Yet when confronted with Gordon’s works—even the most tender ones—one might (rightfully) still wonder: Does devastation hit harder at volume or through a whisper?
 
“To be in one’s own shadow” evokes a gothic sympathy for the dark and murky side of human nature, stressing recurrent themes in Gordon’s work. A bit of a devil, kind of a master of disguise, he centers his efforts on mirroring and displacement, reflections, contradictions, doppelgängers, personality disorders, the divine and the demonic, truth and fiction, light and darkness, and an urgent and somewhat wicked interest in the duplicity inherent in humanity. Duality and bifurcations of Borgesian descent underlie his practice both as subjects and as means he grapples with in making and displaying his work.
 
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