Though the Venice Biennale is more than a year away, countries have already started announcing their representatives for the prestigious art event. Australia, Iceland and New Zealand have already announced their representatives, while the Biennale announced last week that Cecilia Alemani would be the artistic director for the event. The latest addition was Stan Douglas, who would represent Canada at the biennale.
Stan Douglas is perhaps one of the most talked-about video artists of current times. The last decade has been particularly favourable to his fame. In Venice Biennale alone, he has been featured four times. The latest, which was in 2019, saw his famous work Döppelganger – a video about female astronauts exploring ‘alienation’. Döppelganger continues to be featured in exhibitions across the world, slated to appear at David Zwirner gallery and Victoria Miro gallery this month. In all his works, a special emphasis has been paid towards the marginalised groups of society.
Apart from his video installation, Stan Douglas also achieved fame in abstract photography. He even won the Hasselblad award in 2016, one of the top prizes of photographic art. Douglas also occasionally dabble in theatre productions.
Stan Douglas’s selection was made by a jury comprising of some of the biggest authorities in the Canadian art world: John Zeppetelli, Sasha Suda (Director/CEO, National Gallery of Canada), Reid Shier (Director, Polygon Gallery) and Kitty Scott (Deputy Director, National Gallery of Canada). After his selection, the jury released the following statement:
Douglas is one of the country’s most internationally respected artists, with a practice recognized for its critical imagination, formal ingenuity and deep commitment to social enquiry. . . . The currency of Douglas’ practice is especially relevant in the context of the Biennale’s global dialogues, and the jury was unanimous in its enthusiasm for his selection.
