Past Imperfect “Works 1986 – 2007”

Alongside appearances at the Venice Biennale and numerous additional biennials, Canadian artist Stan Douglas (*1960) has also participated in the Documenta three times. This publication accompanies the first comprehensive retrospective of his works produced since the eighties, encompassing fourteen video and film installations, as well as numerous photographs. Developed in close collaboration with Douglas, the exhibition is arranged according to various potential readings of the artist’s complex works, and his multifaceted interpretations of history, film, and music.nnWith recourse to the intellectual, cultural, and ideological traditions of modernity, Douglas’s works exemplify a critical revision of Western history, past and present. It is the idealized modern utopias, and the “ghosts” spawned from their failure, which form some of the artist’s central themes.