The Secret Agent
Artist
Stan Douglas
(Canadian, born 1960)
Date2015
Mediumsix-channel video installation, eight audio channels, with six musical variations, colour, sound
Dimensions53:35 minutes (loop), overall dimensions variable
Credit LineCollection of Remai Modern. Purchased with the support of the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation 2017.
Object number2017.5
Classificationsvideo
On View
Not on viewStan Douglas is known for the rigorous aesthetic execution of his projects, which are informed by intensive research. His combined interest in history, theatre, photography and technology has resulted in an internationally celebrated body of work. This work is an adaption of Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel, The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, which recounts an anarchist’s failed bomb plot in London. Douglas sets the text in Portugal’s so-called “Hot Summer” of 1975. During Portugal’s transition from dictatorship to democracy, the country was rocked by numerous terrorist acts by extreme right- and left-wing groups. Douglas’s work delves into the context of the modernization of political, economic and social structures, and the complexities of the promise of revolution.
Characteristic of Douglas’s multilayered and nonlinear video installations, scenes depict moments taking place both before and after a climactic event that is never explicitly shown. Douglas’s insightful adaptation acknowledges the slippage between historical record, lived experience and retrospection, foregrounding the importance of truth while problematizing any authoritative certainty. The Secret Agent was shown for the first time in Canada at Remai Modern.
Characteristic of Douglas’s multilayered and nonlinear video installations, scenes depict moments taking place both before and after a climactic event that is never explicitly shown. Douglas’s insightful adaptation acknowledges the slippage between historical record, lived experience and retrospection, foregrounding the importance of truth while problematizing any authoritative certainty. The Secret Agent was shown for the first time in Canada at Remai Modern.
