‘GENTE DI PALERMO!’: ORIGINAL VIDEO INSTALLATION AT THE DOGE’S PALACE PRISONS

The video installation by Douglas Gordon (in photo) ‘Gente di Palermo!’, a very original amateur film he shot during a visit to the Crypt of the Capuchins in Palermo, an underground cemetery containing thousands of exposed, embalmed corpses, can be visited until 24 November 2017 from 8.30 am to 7 pm in the Prisons of the Doge’s Palace in St Mark’s Square.
As can be read in the presentation to the event ‘Gordon has often focused on the juxtaposition of doubles and opposites: here the macabre contrast between life and death, between the playful aspect of the balloon and the dramatic nature of the context, is encapsulated in a few frames whose heavy pathos derives from their warning of the brevity of life, but also from the macabre and ironic presence of a toy more in keeping with an amusement park than a cemetery’.
Douglas Gordon (1966), known especially to a young audience on the video art scene, has made numerous video installations, films and documentaries, including 24 Hour Psycho (1993), one of the longest experimental films in history. He won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
The event is curated by Mario Codognato and produced in association with Venetian Heritage Onlus, The British Council and Canon.