PARASOPHIA 京都国際現代芸術祭2015

Stan Douglas
b. 1960 in Vancouver, BC, Canada; based in Vancouver

Work in exhibition
Luanda-Kinshasa, 2013
Single-channel video projection (HD video)
6 hr. 1 min. (looped)

See all installation views at higher resolution: www.flickr.com/photos/parasophia/sets/72157656449104959

Since the mid-1980s, Stan Douglas has researched actual incidents and events occurring in specific places, in order to create photographs, videos, and films that reconsider minor and forgotten histories. Douglas treads the line between documentary and fiction, creating provocative and open-ended works that manifest themselves in ways that artistic intention. His work has appeared in numerous international group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1990, 2001, 2005) and Documenta (1992, 1997, 2002), and an exhibition of his recent work, Stan Douglas: Mise en scène is touring Europe until 2016.
At Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Douglas presents Luanda-Kinshasa (2014), which is set in a reconstruction of Columbia Records’ legendary New York 30th Street studio (1949–81) nicknamed “The Church.” The work is set in 1974, the year that Portugal began to extricate from its African colonies such as Angola (Luanda) and Muhammad Ali and George Foreman had their Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire (Kinshasa). Ten musicians create music that is a synthesis of Miles Davis’s 1972 album On the Corner and Afrobeat of the era.

• Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art