vanity of the alegory
DESCRIPTION
Dougblas GordonTRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Douglas Gordon’s The Vanity Allegory (Exibition Checklist), Deutsche Guggenheim, 2005
![Page 2: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
The Vanity of Allegory also features "Fragile hands collapse under pressure" (1999), which is a byproduct of a special project for which you commissioned a wax effigy of yourself from the Musée Grévin in Paris. Since 1999, you’ve been taking photographs of yourself alongside your wax double every year on the same day. Could you tell us more about this project? What actually happened to the hands?
It’s a project I’m doing with my gallery in Paris, Yvon Lambert . I told Yvon that I wanted a wax model, and he said, let’s go to the Musée Grévin and have their people do it. It’s meant as a very straight reversal quotation of Oscar Wilde , where Dorian Gray can live life with no change because the painting takes everything. As soon as I started this project, things started happening to me. I fell, and now I have this scar on my head; I had an operation on my back; I have another scar here [points at his cheek]. I kept falling down. So: the wax figure is flawless, while I’m the one being ravished – the exact opposite of the Dorian Grey thing.
![Page 3: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Douglas Gordon, Fragile Hans Collapse under Pressure, 1999
So, to document this, you have your picture taken every year?
I’m supposed to do this. Let’s say: yes, it’s good for the idea.
And what about the hand?
Well, there are others. But this one in the show is the “fragile hand.”
![Page 4: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Which fell off?
No, it didn’t even go on. What they do is this: they use a sculptor to form the head, but the hands are made with a cast. It’s a weird and nice thing: for the head they take an artist, so it’s an interpretation. The hands are casts so realistic that they even have your fingerprints on them. It’s kind of bizarre. So when I had my hands done, they said, oh, Mister Gordon, we’re sorry, your hands were so fragile that they collapsed under pressure [looks at his rather big hands]. They don’t look very fragile to me [laughs]. So I kind of liked the joke. But, you know, the first finger to fall off was my ring finger, which happened just as I was having this break-up with my girlfriend. I like to read this as a sign. But then the next finger will be this one [holds up his little finger], so the hand will be like this [makes a blessing gesture]. Pax. It’s the nearest I get to the Pope, when my pinky finger falls off.
![Page 5: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
![Page 6: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
![Page 7: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
![Page 8: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Do you know the story of Perugino?Well yes, it’s said to be a disguised self-portraitof the painter.
That’s one story, but there’s a new story: it’s afake. If you look at the image in the exhibition,it’s the mirrored image of the real thing. That’sthe key: the original Perugino, which is noteven here, is the main work in the show. Atfirst it was a problem not to have the originalin the show, and we had to find a solution.Then I was happy the problem arose, becausethe solution, I think, is even more poetic thanthe real thing. Now, when people look in themirror of the cinema at Deutsche Guggenheim,they can see it somewhere in the distance likea mirage of a fake. With a mirage of a fake, youknow: when you take two negatives, it makesup something like a positive, you could almostbelieve that the real thing is somewhere in theether. So that was the keystone work. Andthen, in a practical sense, I was very nearNancy Spector’s office, so I would pop up andwe would chat and she would make somesuggestions and I would make somesuggestions. And so, slowly but surely wepulled the exhibition together
![Page 9: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
![Page 10: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Your work "Proposal for a Posthumous Portrait" (2004) seems quite morbid. It shows a carved skull embedded in a mirrored case. At the same time, it refers to a classical Vanitasmotif. What fascinates you about the transitoriness of being?
If you think that’s morbid, you should see some of the other things [laughs]. The Proposal for a Posthumous Portrait is a reference not only to Vanitas, but to Duchamp . Because the star carved in the back of the head is measured exactly from the photographs of Marcel Duchamp with the star-shaped tonsure. There’s another piece that’s not in the show – we discussed it, and came to the conclusion that it would make a very different type of show. It involves buying a skull, a real one, for every year of my life, 38 in all, and making a trepanation into the skull, one star shape for each year. The first one would have one, the second two, the third three, and so on. And by the time I’m fifty years old, it will become very difficult to have a skull with fifty stars. Imagine, when I get to be an old man and I’m very fragile, then my little birthday present to myself is going to be extremely fragile. So you could say that my interest in defeating death is inevitably some kind of vanity.
![Page 11: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
![Page 12: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
![Page 13: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
![Page 14: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
![Page 15: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
![Page 16: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
![Page 17: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
![Page 18: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
![Page 19: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
![Page 20: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
![Page 21: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Jeff Koons, Louis XIV, 1986
A Renaissance painting next to a Jeff Koons sculpture: How will the audience bring this together?
I don’t think it’s a problem. You know, the works represent themselves as well as they represent the time they were made. And we were very careful which Koons to use, we wanted that one and not, for example, Michael Jackson or the Pink Panther. Next to the Perugino, that could be tricky. I think we made a careful choice.
![Page 22: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
![Page 23: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
![Page 24: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
![Page 25: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
![Page 26: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
![Page 27: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
![Page 28: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
![Page 29: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
![Page 30: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
![Page 31: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
![Page 32: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
![Page 33: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
![Page 34: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
![Page 35: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
![Page 36: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
![Page 37: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
![Page 38: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
![Page 39: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
![Page 40: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
![Page 41: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/41.jpg)
![Page 42: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/42.jpg)
![Page 43: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/43.jpg)
![Page 44: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/44.jpg)
![Page 45: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/45.jpg)
![Page 46: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/46.jpg)
![Page 47: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/47.jpg)
![Page 48: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/48.jpg)
![Page 49: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/49.jpg)
![Page 50: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/50.jpg)
![Page 51: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/51.jpg)
![Page 52: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/52.jpg)
![Page 53: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/53.jpg)
![Page 54: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/54.jpg)
![Page 55: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/55.jpg)
![Page 56: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/56.jpg)
![Page 57: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/57.jpg)
![Page 58: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/58.jpg)
![Page 59: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/59.jpg)
![Page 60: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/60.jpg)
![Page 61: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/61.jpg)
![Page 62: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/62.jpg)
Cheever, O Nadador:
http://www.ficcoes.org/anteriores/ficcoes_de_ferias/ficcoes_ferias-conto-por-
extenso.html
![Page 63: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/63.jpg)
![Page 64: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/64.jpg)
![Page 65: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/65.jpg)
![Page 66: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/66.jpg)
![Page 67: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/67.jpg)
![Page 68: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/68.jpg)
![Page 69: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/69.jpg)
![Page 70: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/70.jpg)
![Page 71: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/71.jpg)
![Page 72: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/72.jpg)
![Page 73: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/73.jpg)
![Page 74: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/74.jpg)
![Page 75: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/75.jpg)
![Page 76: Vanity of the alegory](https://reader036.vdocuments.site/reader036/viewer/2022062817/568c4d4d1a28ab4916a369dc/html5/thumbnails/76.jpg)