1 Stan Douglas: Interregnum
Interregnum, curated by Snauwaert, is the first extensive solo exhibition of Douglas in Belgium and covers films and photographs made in the last seven years. The title refers to ‘the period in between’ and pertains to the predominant leitmotif in the exhibition. “All the works are related to periods of transition and to a certain extent also of disorder, periods which the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls the state of exception” (Douglas qtd. in Stedenheydens 18). These moments of chaos, transition and uncertainty are exhibited on two floors. The works dealing with the history of twentieth century North America are displayed on the second floor, where viewers first experience Crowds & Riots (2008), which are four large-format images staging significant moments in Vancouverian history. The first three photographs portray the collective body in revolt against power, while the fourth shows consumers at a horse race. Crowds and Riots depicts moments that move the collective body, whether ideologically or capitalistically. Therefore, the series is not only a reflection on local history, but also a socio-historical study on the interaction between the individual and the collective (Kealy “Crowds” 17). Crowds and Riots fluently transposes into the distinctly different but equally staged Midcentury Studio (2010-1), in which Douglas takes on the alter ego of a self-taught photojournalist who captured some characteristic scenes of North America between 1945 and 1951. Midcentury Studio, of which the title refers to the studio of the Vancouverian photographer, portrays five key topics, which are fashion, public settings, everyday life, and the world of magic, crime and murder (Kealy “Midcentury” 55; Phillips 9-13). The exhibition on the second floor concludes with Hotel Vancouver and Hogan’s Alley, which are both connected to Douglas’ artistic app, Circa 1948, in which the user wanders through post-war Vancouver. By means of film noir aesthetics and digital manipulation, the images show the once grand Edwardian hotel and the slums of Hogan’s Alley in a state of decay (Pontbriand 188-90).
On the third floor Interregnum continues with works related to the aftermath of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 1974. The Revolution set in motion a chain of events with not only consequences in Portugal but also in its former colonies, and led to social upheaval and various liberation wars. Together with the Cold War and the boom of popular culture, the aforesaid shaped Douglas’ research and resulted in three interlinked works, which are The Secret Agent (2015), Luanda-Kinshasa (2013) and Disco Angola (2012). The Secret Agent, a six-screen film installation, explores the interactive relation between the screens and the viewer. At certain moments, the spectator is enclosed by opposing screens and finds himself literally between events and conversations. Douglas starts from Conrad’s novel and resituates the plot, originally set in 1890s London, into the context of the social disorder in Portugal after the Revolution. The Beckettian characters, trapped within their own powerlessness, all seem incompetent to alter the political stagnation (de Bruyn 160-5; Kealy “Appendix” 184-5; Snauwaert 5-6). Disco Angola completes the history of the Carnation Revolution by showing the decolonisation of Angola. Douglas, who again impersonates a fictitious photographer, combines this moment of liberation with the early disco scene in New York and, furthermore, intertwines the two locations, separated by the Atlantic, aesthetically and choreographically (Kealy “Disco” 121; “Disco”). Additionally, the video installation Luanda-Kinshasa, referring to Miles Davis and the troublesome decolonisation period in Africa, documents a fictional neo-jazz performance (Diedrichsen 148; “Luanda-Kinshasa”). Finally, Interregnum displays Kardynal Shoes of the Interiors series (2009-10), which is probably the outsider of the exhibition due to its hidden location and its non-staged aesthetics. Moreover, Interiors does not refer to fictional or historical moments but portrays the passing of time by means of human decisions and intensions (Kealy “Interiors” 37).
2 Fictitious and historical re-enactments
The majority of Douglas’ work falls under the heading of staged photography, which is a photographic genre that portrays scenes composed in front of the lens. Accordingly, the genre opposes straight photography, that is, a photographic genre known for its veracity and documentary nature. Moreover, Douglas’ art is linked to the cinematographic, “in which the subject of the picture has been prepared in some way, ranging from minimal modifications to the construction of entire sets, creation of costumes and objects, etc.” (qtd. in Van Gelder, and Westgeest 23). Douglas’ staged and cinematographic aspect will be analysed by means of Crowds and Riots and Midcentury Studio.
The staged photographs of the two series go together with archival research. Douglas studies, among others, newspapers, police reports and photographic archives so as to signal past periods. Crowds and Riots is evidence of this research-based approach and presents scenes from significant public gatherings in Vancouver’s past. Powell Street Ground, 28 January 1912, for example, shows a physical conflict between the police and the masses during a free speech demonstration at the time when the city tried to prohibit all public gatherings in order to counterbalance the power of the controversial union organisation Industrial Workers of the World. The meetings of the Wobblies called attention to issues, such as unemployment and distribution of wealth, and often agitated the masses. Ballantyne Pier, 18 June 1935, portraying a clash between the police and longshoremen, similarly depicts a scene from an actual event, that is, the Battle of Ballantyne Pier. Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, which is now a site-specific installation, is equally based on verifiable events, the Gastown Riots, and shows a provoked incident between the police and hippies during a smoke-in. Apart from the aforesaid local history, Crowds and Riots is also influenced by another veracious event, that is, the Battle of Cable Street in London (“Humor”; Kealy “Crowds” 17). In Midcentury Studio, on the contrary, Douglas does not focus on specific historical events but aesthetically evokes the mood of post-war North America. Inspired by images of Weegee, Murno and the Black Star Agency, Douglas recreates the photographic characteristics of the period and reflects upon the free composition of the often visually unhandy post-war photographs, which strongly differed from the strict formalized images of Magnum Agency. Post-war photographs were made with slowly adjustable speed graphic cameras that were heavy and hard to frame, and therefore mostly shot with automatic settings. These noirish techniques and the use of synchronised flash bulbs resulted in uncanny pictures (Kealy “Midcentury” 55; Phillips 9-13:17). Added to the historical events and the period aesthetics, Douglas also mimics the zeitgeist and creates a simulacrum by means of props and settings. While composing his tableau-like photographs, Douglas surrounds himself with professionals, including actors, stylists and location spotters, as if his photographs were Hollywood films. The images of Crowds and Riots and Midcentury Studio, for example, meticulously evoke the climate and follow the physiognomy, the hair and fashion styles, and the interior design of the researched time. Hair, 1948, for example, resembles the chignon of Vertigo’s Madeleine and refers to the typical hairdos of the post-war era (Balzer; Kealy “Crowds” 17; Kealy “Midcentury” 55). The other works at Interregnum, with the exception of Interiors, equally play the part of their period.
In addition, Douglas’ staged photographs are often the result of digital montage, that is, “a computer-assimilated composition of several cinematographic photographs of the same subject” (Van Gelder, and Westgeest 26). The digital nature of these photographs raises questions about iconicity and indexicality. In the past, photographs were seen as indexes until Krauss put forward the term ‘indexical icon’ in order to stress photography’s iconic and indexical nature, as it at the same time bears a representational and causal relation with reality. Staged and digital photographs, like Douglas’, however, exert pressure on this notion. At first, staged photographs are indexical icons, since the shutter froze the moment of posing and the photographs show resemblance to the depicted. However, a photograph like Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, composed out of fifty images, questions photography’s veracity. Notwithstanding the indexicality of the fifty independent pictures, the final photograph is either an icon, as it is imaginary, or a construction of several indexes. Therefore, Douglas’ pictures are indecisive as one can never be sure if the depicted is a pure index, an icon or an icon with multiple indexes. In spite of the indexical appearance of the images, viewers need paratextual references to realize the untruthfulness to reality. Still, this does not imply falsity, and staged photographs can in fact evoke truthfulness (Kealy “Crowds” 16; Van Gelder, and Westgeest 33-40). The photographs of Crowds and Riot and Midcentury Studio “entertain a critical dialectic relationship with regard to the reality they reflect on” and as Campany says, in line with Godard, “even art photographs […] will turn out to be as much documents of Stan Douglas’s moment, our moment, as any moment they depict”. (Van Gelder, and Westgeest 39-40; Campany 14). In closing, Douglas states that “maybe we can get closer to the truth by telling a fictional story instead of an obsessive search for strictly factual events” (qtd. in Stedenheydens 19).
3 Ruins of modernity and utopic failure
Thematically Douglas often returns to ruins of modernity, “a subset of ruins understood not as a historical periodization – i.e., an inquiry into the representation of ruins in the centuries characterized as modern – but as a specific exploration of causality: how modernity produces ruins, or modernization as a generator of ruins” (Bernam 106). Therefore, ruins of modernity cover not only the decline of substantial ruins but also the failure of certain narratives and refer to the damaging effects of the modern range of thought. Modernity, flowing from Enlightened ideas as progress, autonomy, rationality, revolution and emancipation, and its desire to constantly move forwards, has caused, amongst others, abuse of power, natural catastrophes, genocide and atrocity. Moreover, ruins of modernity associate with the repercussions of colonial expansion and allude to exploitation, civil wars and identity loss in the colonised space. Hence, modernity often coincides with decay and utopic failure (Presner 193-5:206-9). Douglas conjoins these moments of modernist failure with abandoned utopias in, for example, The Secret Agents, Disco Angola and Luanda-Kinshasa.
The Secret Agent depicts Portugal just after the coup d’état and questions whether the Carnation Revolution was a failure or a triumph on the long term. Douglas returns to the moment when the totalitarian Estado Novo regime lost its power thanks to the bloodless revolt of the Armed Forced Movement. The longing for a modern society created, together with the political and economic endeavours on the mainland and the perpetual colonial struggles overseas, a climate that was ready for radical reorientation. Nevertheless, Portugal’s will to change towards equality and modernity, and its aspirations for a new socialist government were soon blocked by internal conflicts and created a rift between the followers of the MFA and the emerging Communist Party. A year after the overthrow Portugal found itself in a so-called revolution within a revolution and the Communist Party was close to full power, which was feared not only by the Portuguese opposition but also by the United States who financially supported the centrist’s parties. Despite the year and a half of turmoil, democracy eventually succeeded with a triumph for the socialist party and the search for modernity could finally be initiated. However, keeping in mind the recent global economic crisis, which much affected Portugal and the other PIIGS countries, Douglas questions the success of the revolution within its long-term denouement. The situation in Portugal today, characterised by regress, unemployment and a centre-right bloc, bears a resemblance to the years before the Carnation Revolution. Douglas, thus, emphasises the unfulfilled nature of modernity as progress is once more abandoned (Smith 148-156; Snauwaert 5-6).
Disco Angola also brings the failure of the Carnation Revolution to the fore but now focuses on the aftermath of the same events in Portugal’s former colony Angola. The photographs portray scenes from Angola’s liberation, which was an important transitional moment with no predictable outcome. The euphoria of the liberation and the hopes for a better world soon darkened, as the decolonisation conflict became the setting of the Cold War. After a civil war of twenty-seven years, which claimed millions of lives, Angola could finally continue its search towards emancipation. The Angola pictures of the series are visually linked with another abandoned utopia, that is, disco. Douglas’ persona depicts the edgy underground disco scene in New York before its commercialisation and, in a way, its ruination. In the end, disco entered the mainstream and produced music that was easy accessible for the general public, as witnessed by the two personages of Two Friend, 1975. Like with many other music genres, the utopic trance of disco failed when it was adopted by the middle-class. Furthermore, disco, among others, played an important role in the gentrification of Manhattan, which led to the high livings costs of today (“Disco”; Kealy “Disco” 121; Stedenheydens 19).
The decolonisation and its aftermath is also depicted in Luanda-Kinshasa as the title of the work refers to African countries, which long felt the consequences of Western imperialism. Aside from the long-running civil war in Angola, also the Congo suffered after its independence in 1960. Even now, the Congo, which experiences one of the deadliest conflicts since WWII, is still haunted by the horrors of Leopold II and the badly managed decolonisation. In addition, Luanda-Kinshasa refers to the postcolonial tradition to rename cities in order to break associations with the colonial past. Leopoldville was, for instance, renamed into Kinshasa and São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda into Luanda. The act of rebaptising cities after a period of atrocity is utopic and refers to the longing for a new and better world that is distant from the past (Diederichsen 148; McIntosh 40-5). Nevertheless, in both Luanda-Kinshasa and Disco Angola Douglas emphasises Nkruma’s concept of neo-colonialism, that is, the continuance of economic, financial and political control of Western countries over the former colonies. Despite the end of the military occupation, the colonised subjects are still strongly dependent on the West. Therefore, Douglas draws attention to the debacle of the decolonisation and the hauntings of the past (Demos 12).
3 Narrative of absence
The works at Interregnum are marked by a dyadic absence. Firstly, Douglas mediates on nearly forgotten moments that signify an absence in history so as to symbolically fill the historical gap. Paradoxically, his representations of these historical cracks are characterized by incompleteness and a constant allusion to an external world that cannot be grasped. Douglas explains “an absence is often the focus of my work. Even if I am resurrecting these obsolete forms of representation, I’m always indicating their inability to represent the real subject of the work. It’s always something that is outside the system” (qtd. in Wood 197).
Douglas passes over macro history and its grand narratives in order to let the forgotten subjects of the past speak. In doing so, Douglas focuses on micro history by putting forward defined moments in time and space. As stated by Said, history should “give voice to what is passed over, silenced or excluded in cultural production” (qtd. in Presner 194). Moreover, Douglas’ art consists of traces, spectres and memories and, hence, belongs to hauntology, introduced by Derrida to indicate the continuous haunting of the past (Coulthard; Demos 8-13). Additionally, Douglas returns to anteriority in order to introduce the forgotten narrative in contemporaneity and posterity. Conforming to ‘new time’ by Koselleck, Douglas bestows history as an open and unfixed space. He, furthermore, evokes Nietzsche’s notion of an everlasting reiteration of history as his art reworks past narratives without a fixed limit. Douglas, thus, hinders the past to seal off from the present and the future (Presner 196; Ross 286-7). Nevertheless, it is perhaps better to say that past events “do not remain permanently accessible to posterity. Rather, they lie dormant until a new circumstance makes them understandable and pertinent” and, as such, “a past moment may become meaningful to a present that has the means to grasp its deepest character” (Campany 11). Based on Benjamin’s concept of history, Douglas’ art can be defined as allegorical in view of its interaction between the present and the past so as to construct new narratives. Consequently, Interregnum reflects upon cracks in history in order to share new knowledge about the past, present and future by means of a fictive and non-fictive jumble (Campany 11).
Focussing on Midcentury Studio, Luanda-Kinshasa and The Secret Agent, Douglas portrays missing moments from history by means of visual and thematic absence. Midcentury Studio translates this absence in the uncanny, that is, an eerie and otherworldly daunting feeling. As previously mentioned, the images mimic the aesthetics of 1940s photography, in which the automatic cameras and flash bulbs disorientated the subject and, hence, created ghostly and unexpected photographs. The uncanny further penetrates the series by means of an uncommon cropping that implies a hidden spectral world. Images like Shoes 1947 and Hair 1948 establish a visual link, owing to their fetish-like focus on body parts and their decapitated models and summon an eerie absence. Midcentury Studio represents a “gnostic time”, that is, “a time as a collection of unconnected moments” which means that the images are connected by the absent career of the photographer (Sigg 23). The viewer needs to fill in the gaps between the different pictures to understand the whole (Balzer; Phillips 17-21). Luanda-Kinshasa is marked by the haunting absence of Miles Davis. During the 1970s critics claimed that Davis played less on his own records in order to give more elbowroom to other musicians and on stage Davis often wandered between his fellow musicians in order to give them instructions. Keeping in mind this description, the subjective camera of Luanda-Kinshasa could be Davis walking as a conductor between the musicians. Therefore, we see the performance through the eyes of Davis’ trumpet (Diederichsen 148-9). Finally, The Secret Agent is characterised by the absence of Verloc’s failed terrorist attack on modernity, during which Stevie accidentally died. Although Stevie is a key figure in the plot, he is invisible to the camera and to the other characters, with exception of Winnie. Moreover, the liberation wars in Portugal’s colonies are completely absent from The Secret Agent (de Bruyn 168-9).
Conclusion
Clearly displayed by subject matter, the exhibition presents Douglas’ visualisations of twentieth century North America and the aftermath of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution. Against the backdrop of those micro histories, Interregnum sums up some of the leitmotifs that recur throughout Douglas’ career. To begin with, Douglas expresses his photographic and cinematographic re-enactments by means of staged photography, which is often digitally manipulated as well. By means of extensive research Douglas aesthetically and thematically summons the zeitgeist of the period in question and endeavours to awaken the spectres of the past. In addition, Douglas often explores topoi as abandoned utopias and modernity in ruins and, hence, engages in an interesting interaction with the modernist building of WIELS. Interregnum questions the triumph of modernity as it focuses on its failure and repercussions on the long term. Coupled with the concept of neo-colonialism in works such as Disco Angola and Luanda-Kinshasa, Douglas brings to mind the failure of the decolonisation due to its, although disguised, continuous character. Finally, Douglas depicts nearly forgotten historical moments or narratives in the interest of the silenced and the overlooked voice. These transitional moments are represented by an eerie absence, which indicates that the whole is beyond grasp. At Interregnum Douglas unwraps history in order to construct new narratives explaining not only the past but also the present and the future.