Art Sonje Center presents the Scottish artist Douglas Gordon’s new film, Portrait of Janus (divided states) for the first time this year from 28 November to 10 December 2017 as part of the UK / Korea 2017-18 official programmes.

Douglas Gordon’s new work uses the demarcation line of Korea’s Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the strip of land separating North and South Korea, to trace a literal and metaphorical boundary. The film tracks the DMZ border being tattooed vertically along the spine of a young Korean man, Janus Hoon Jang. It follows the tattooist’s needle moving down and across his skin and the motifs of the political and personal jar in a private act that is both tender and violent. The delicately balanced contradictions of the emerging image and it’s meanings are haunted by Okkyung Lee’s accompaniment.

The film will be shown everyday (closed on Mondays) at 2, 4, 6 pm at B1 Art Hall. The 6pm-screening on 5th December will be followed by a lecture titled From ‘Remaking Cinema’ to ‘Video Portraits’: Douglas Gordon’s Art of the Moving Image by Professor Jihoon Kim from Chung-Ang University.

Douglas Gordon (born 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998, among others. In 2012, Gordon became a Commandeur de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded the title by the French Cultural Minister in Berlin on behalf of the French Republic. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Janus Hoon Jang, adopted by a Danish couple, often returns to Korea to research his family history. He currently lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Okkyung Lee (born 1975) is a South Korean cellist, improvisor and composer. She has collaborated with a range of musicians and artists including Laurie Anderson, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore and John Zorn. She is based in New York, USA.

Screening & Lecture

From ‘Remaking Cinema’ to ‘Video Portraits’: Douglas Gordon’s Art of the Moving Image

*Date: 5 Dec, 2017, 6:30pm

*Lecturer: Prof. Jihoon Kim (Chung-Ang University)

About the Lecturer
Jihoon Kim is an associate professor of cinema and media studies at Chung-ang University, South Korea. He is the author of Between Film, Video, and the Digital: Hybrid Moving Images in the Post-media Age (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). His essays on experimental film and video, moving image installations, digital arts, experimental documentary, film and media theory have appeared in
Screen, Film Quarterly, Millennium Film Journal, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, as well as Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, 2015), Global Art Cinema (Oxford University Press, 2010), Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), amongst others. Currently he is working on his second book manuscript entitled ocumentary’s Expanded Fields: New Media, New Platforms, and the Documentary.

Hosted by: Art Sonje Center

Commissioned by : Locus+

Produced by: Locus+ and lost but found film limited in partnership with the Korean Cultural Center, UK

*This project is supported by Korea England joint fund.