Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon film review: Vulnerable, self-critical confessions
Douglas Gordon’s viscerally immersive documentary exposes all the facets of his identity, in a blunt, unglamorous and raw personal portrait
There has always been a performative element to the work of Douglas Gordon, the Turner Prize-winning Scottish artist responsible for groundbreaking landmarks 24 Hour Psycho and Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait. In this self-deprecating, confessional film, the artist lays bare his own demons. Seen setting fire to a bunch of flowers while he photocopies them or torching a grand piano on a beach, Gordon’s enfant terrible actions suggest his willingness to be seen as ‘playing to the crowd’. Discussing his art, he makes an incisive remark: ‘If it wasn’t me who did it, I’d probably like it more.’
A self-proclaimed Jehovah’s Witness boy from Maryhill, Gordon is pictured on camera cutting impishly about his chaotic Berlin studio in a football strip with Maradona’s name and number on the back or emerging from underneath a giant white camouflage net. Yet the scars under that shirt from a hernia operation look painfully real, as do raw emotions displayed as he wells up in tears talking to his mother on the phone. This unexpected intimacy sets the scene for uncomfortable footage of Gordon unravelling in a Rome hotel room due to not being present for his son’s birthday. So how much of the drama described in Douglas Gordon On Douglas Gordon should be taken as gospel? In Finlay Pretsell’s slippery, deeply personal documentary, overt creative evasiveness gives way to blunt honesty, an artist revealed through reflexive games played with his audience.
Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon, Filmhouse, 17 August, 8.30pm; 18 August, noon; 19 August, 2.30pm, 3pm.