Stan Douglas

ART21, The Cinematheque and Contemporary Art Gallery partner to premiere ART21’s new season, Season 8 of *Art in the Twenty-First Century* includes a one hour film on four, Vancouver based, celebrated Canadian artists: Stan Douglas, Brian Jungen, Liz Magor, and Jeff Wall.

“In small and tightly-knit Vancouver, artists reframe the world through a series of sophisticated illusions. By recreating historical moments, staging photos of vernacular scenes, and crafting intricate sculptures that trick the eye, artists reveal how everyday images and moments from the past are not always what they seem. Liz Magor (b.1948, Winnipeg, MB, Canada) makes uncannily realistic casts of humble objects—gloves, cardboard boxes, cigarettes—that speak to mortality and local histories. Through complex video installations, photos, theatrical productions, and virtual reality simulations, Stan Douglas (b.1960, Vancouver, BC, Canada) reenacts historical moments of tension that connect the history of Vancouver to broader social movements of struggle and utopian aspiration. Brian Jungen (b.1970, Fort St. John, BC, Canada) draws from his family’s ranching and hunting background, as well as his Dane-zaa heritage, when disassembling and recombining consumer goods into whimsical sculptures. Attentive to the accidental encounters that can inspire an image, photographer Jeff Wall (b.1946, Vancouver, BC, Canada) recreates flashes of inspiration by building sets and repeatedly photographing gestures until they coalesce into a picture that’s printed on a grand scale.” (ART21)

ART21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to learn first-hand from the artists of our time. A non-profit organization, ART21’s mission is to inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists. Season 8 of *Art in the Twenty-First Century* premieres fall 2016 on PBS with stories on artists who live and work in four North American cities: *Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City*, and *Vancouve*r. For more information on ART21’s films and educational programs visit [art21.org](https://art21.org/)


Image of a house foregrounded by the title, "art in the twenty-first century" in all capital letters. 

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Art in the Twenty-First Century

Screening

Stan Douglas’ most recent (2001) video work takes its name from two movies, one a 1974 remake starring Vincent Price which was filmed in Vancouver. Douglas’ work stages an antagonistic exchange between a woman and a man in a cyclical, ever maturing loop, a formal device characteristic of Douglas’ recent practice. Set on a container ship, the work examines the 1970s as a historical moment of flux between internationalism and globalism, to which the ship acts as a stage and metaphor. The DVD is accompanied by a suite of photographs of Vancouver set locations, including Douglas’ sixteen foot long depiction of a building on 100 West Hastings. This work, *Every Building on 100 West Hastings*, will be the subject of a monographic publication that will examine this image of the most derelict corner of downtown Vancouver through the frameworks of social history and urban geography. 

The exhibition was realized with the generous cooperation of the Vancouver Art Gallery.


Essay: "Introduction," Reid Shier

A CTR TV is placed on a white table in a darkened gallery space. A single-channel video is played on the TV. The video shows the head of a person talking directly to the camera. 

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Four framed photographs are mounted on the gallery walls. One of them is the aerial view of a parking lot surrounded by autumn leaves. Others show the architecture in a city. 

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Two photographs are mounted on the gallery walls. The one mounted on the right-hand side wall is a panorama view of a street taken at night. The other one depicts an aerial view of a port city. 

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Several photographs are mounted on the gallery walls. The one mounted on the left-hand side wall is a panorama view of a street taken at night. Two smaller photographs are mounted on the other wall.

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Journey into Fear

This book, published in 2002 by the Contemporary Art Gallery and Arsenal Pulp Press, is based on a monumental-sized print of the south side of 100 West Hastings by Stan Douglas. Douglas created a 66 x 427cm panorama of epic scope, photographing each building and compositing the individual prints to assume a fantastic, impossible perspective. The print is reproduced in the book as a removable full-colour poster. The book is a homage to Ed Ruscha’s fold-out book *Every Building on Sunset Strip*, 1966.

Edited by Reid Shier, with essays by Denise Blake Oleksijczuk, Neil Smith and Jeff Derksen, Jeff Sommers and Nick Blomley. This publication was produced to coincide with the exhibition Stan Douglas: *Journey Into Fear* at the Contemporary Art Gallery, September 12 – November 3, 2002.

Stan Douglas

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