Installation tackles big subject

Studio lost but found head AV technician Bert Ross, of Glasgow, sets up the video installation...
Studio lost but found head AV technician Bert Ross, of Glasgow, sets up the video installation Play Dead; Real Time in Dunedin yesterday. Photo: Gregor Richardson.
An art installation of a elephant playing possum opens at Dunedin Public Art Gallery today.

Studio lost but found head AV technician Bert Ross, of Glasgow, has been in Dunedin for the past week setting up the video installation Play Dead; Real Time by Berlin-based Scottish artist Douglas Gordon.

For the installation, footage is played on the three screens — two large (6m by 3.43m) and a 71cm monitor — in the McMillan Gallery.

The footage played on the screens is different but the subject is the same — Minnie, a 4-year-old Indian elephant playing dead and rising again in a New York art gallery in 2003.

On one large screen, Minnie is filmed by a camera moving clockwise; on the other large screen the camera filming Minnie moves  counterclockwise.

On the monitor, the footage zooms out from the eye of the elephant.

The footage is between 19  and 22 minutes long.

The screens are positioned in DPAG so people have to move to watch every screen.

Mr Ross said the week of work in Dunedin had been "fantastic".

"Really really good — super — very stress-free."

Three museums own the installation: The Museum of Modern Art in New York, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and Tate Modern in London, Mr Ross said.

The Dunedin copy is "the artist’s proof", owned by Berlin-based Studio lost but found.

DPAG director Cam McCracken said he expected people to return to the gallery several times to see the "contemplative" work.

"I’m expecting it to be really popular. It’s a very beautiful, very meditative, extraordinary work and I think people will develop a relationship with it over the months it is on display in Dunedin."

The installation opens from 10am  today and runs until February 16 next year.

shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz

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