David Zwirner
43 Greene Street
New York NY 10013
Tel: 212/966-9074
Fax: 212/966-4952

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 7, 1995

EXHIBITION: "Subject to a Film: Marnie", "Overture", and recent photographs

DATES: March 24 to April 29, 1995

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Opening on Thursday, March 24, 1995, the gallery will feature the work of the Canadian artist Stan Douglas. Concurrent with the Whitney Biennial, where the artist will premier his new 16mm film loop installation entitled "Sandman", the gallery will show two of Stan Douglas's earlier 16mm film loop installations entitled "Subject to a Film: Marnie" (1989) and "Overture" (1986). Also on view will be a group of recent color photographs related to his new project "Sandman", which was created while the artist participated in a DAAD (German Academic Exchange program) in Berlin.

In all of his installation work, Stan Douglas explores the interplay between structure and content. "Overture" is Stan Douglas's earliest film loop installation. The visual imagery is taken from documentary film footage dating back to the turn of the century. For this film, a camera was attached to the front of a train, filming the panorama while it traveled through the Rocky Mountains. The film takes the viewer in and out of a series of tunnels between grainy panoramic views. The film, approximately 7 minutes long, loops around during one of these tunnel entries, creating a seamless loop. The projection of this film is accompanied by a narrated soundtrack, in which the opening paragraph of Marcel Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" (Remembrance of Things Past) is recited.

For the 16mm film loop installation "Subject to a Film: Marnie", Stan Douglas recreated the crucial office robbery scene from the famous Alfred Hitchcock film by the same name. The office, a modern-day version of the Hitchcock original, with computers substituting for the obligatory typewriters is the backdrop for Stan Douglas' 6 minute film. What gives Douglas' version an almost nighmarish quality is the fact that the thief/secretary never gets to leave the scene of the crime, but instead is trapped in the endless loop of this installation.

The group of C-print color photographs which are presented in this show are, like all of Stan Douglas' photography, project-based. For his most recent 16mm installation, "Sandman" on view at the Whitney Museum as part of the Whitney Biennial, the artist investigates a specific German phenomena: the Schrebergarten; colonies of small gardening plots for the working class usually located near train tracks or on the outskirts of town. The 15 photographs on view in the gallery depict a specific Schrebergarten colonies in and around Potsdam, part of the old East Germany.