Stan Douglas: 2011 ≠ 1848
Stan Douglas: 2011 ≠ 1848 presents a series of works inspired by historical events of social and political turbulence. Douglas connects points of social rupture, rendering in minute detail and with technical ingenuity historic moments of protest, riot, and occupation from 2011 that echoed upheavals that swept Europe in 1848.
The exhibition features five large-scale panoramic photographs depicting different protests and riots from 2011: the start of the Arab Spring in Tunis on Jan. 12 with sit-ins and protests along Avenue Habib Bourguiba; the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver on June 15; clashes between youth and police in London on Aug. 9; and the arrest of Occupy Wall Street protestors on Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Oct. 1. Douglas created the images by combining meticulous and elaborate re-enactments of the events, high-resolution plate shots of each city site, together with aerial documentary footage.
The exhibition also features a two-channel video installation ISDN, an immersive installation that depicts a fictionalized collaboration between rappers from London’s Grime and Cairo’s Mahraganat music scenes. Titled ISDN, after a now-outdated mode of transmitting high-quality audio over telephone lines, the video imagines rappers from the two cities exchanging beats and lyrics in improvised studios, working across space and time to create music collaboratively.
About Stan Douglas
Stan Douglas (b. 1960, Vancouver) is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver and Los Angeles. His films and photographs have been included in exhibitions internationally since the early 1980s, including at documenta IX, X and XI (1992, 1997, 2002) and in four previous Biennale Artes (1990, 2001, 2005 and 2019). A survey of his work, Stan Douglas: Mise en scene, toured Europe from 2013 until the end of 2015. From 2014 until 2017 his multimedia theatre production Helen Lawrence was presented in Vancouver, Toronto, Munich, Antwerp, Edinburgh, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Douglas received the International Centre of Photography’s Infinity Award in 2012, the Scotiabank Photography Award in 2013, the Hasselblad Award in 2016, the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2019 and the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 2021. Between 2004 and 2006 he was a professor at Universität der Künste Berlin and is currently Chair of the Graduate Art Program of ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.
Generously supported by:
Brigitte and Henning Freybe, Phil Lind, Jane Macdonald, Iain Mant and Tracey Pearce, Alexandra Montgomery and Howard Jang, The Michael and Inna O’Brian Family Foundation, Paula Palyga and David Demers, Mark and Diana Sawers Foundation, and Bruno Wall
From September 9 – December 11, Griffin Art Projects in North Vancouver presents Stan Douglas: Allegories of the Present. Find out more.
Banner Image: Stan Douglas, Vancouver, 15 June 2011 (detail), 2021. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.
Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Venice, and David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong.