Stan Douglas ( Canada / Germany ) - Klatsassin

as part of Mois de la Photo à Montréal
From September 6th to October 7th 2007
Opening Thursday September 6th from 4:30pm to 10pm

Klatsassin  ( 2006 )
Stills from a colour video projection of approx. 5min., total running time 73hr.
Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, New York

The Darling Foundry and le Mois de la Photo à Montréal are pleased to present Stan Douglas: Klatsassin opening on September 6th at 4h30 and running through October 7th 2007. Klatsassin (2006) establishes a narrative process that defies the limits of cinematic language. By following a recombinant logic with a multiplicity points of view without beginning or end, the film presents some 850 unrepeating permutations of a murder that is presented over a period of 70 hours. Referring to Akira Kurosawa’s classic Rashomon (1950), the story is an expanding narrative process where levels of intrigue proliferate through combinations, flash-backs, and time-frame changes. The film is presented here with two series of photographs: Klatsassin, Character Portraits and Klatsassin,Western (2006).

Stan Douglas’s practice incorporates photography, video and film. He reinterprets the narrative conventions of television and movies through remakes of productions dating primarily from the 1960s and 1970s. Shot through with social and political concerns, his corpus addresses historical themes related to colonialism, urban development and cultural memory, revealing the failure of social utopias and modernist policies, and portraying the alienation of postmodern society and global capitalism. His work is influenced by his reading of Samuel Beckett, whose characters are imprisoned in the loss of their lives' meaning..