Douglas Gordon and Tobias Rehberger present new work in Ibiza

Associated media

Museu d'Art Contemporani d’Eivissa (MACE), on the popular holiday island of Ibiza, is presenting‘After the After’, an exhibition by Douglas Gordon and Tobias Rehberger, showing new works that merge and interplay with each other to create a direct and unique visual dialogue and collaboration between the two artists. This singular exhibition marks the first time Gordon and Rehberger have approached their practice in this manner. As well as forming an aesthetic conversation, the works can also be considered a direct comment upon each other’s practice, creating a documentation of their personal and artistic relationship.

The exhibition title, ‘After the After’, considers Ibiza’s status as an iconic place of hedonism, parties and decadence while examining the ‘after-point’ that occurs when this ultimately comes to an end, a time of emptiness and paranoia when one should not be left alone. The works in the exhibition range in media, including film, painting, and sculpture and are situated both within the confines of the museum and displayed outside in the surrounding city environment.

At the centre of  ‘After the After’ is a work comprising two parts based on the same section of film of two men engaging in sexual intercourse. Rehberger has constructed a large 5m x 5m ‘tile painting’ depicting the upper half of the men, their faces and torsos, displayed on the terrace wall on the exterior of the museum. On viewing the tile painting close-up the image is totally abstract – totally pixelated from the individual tiles – only when viewed from a distance or through a smartphone screen does the image become distinct and concrete. This optical illusion forges a physical and ultimately emotional distance from the viewer to the intimate moment depicted. In his response, Gordon focuses on the lower half of the men via a film of their moving legs. The film is projected onto a wall inside the museum that can also be viewed from outside alongside Rehberger’s monumental tile painting.

In the interior space of the museum, Gordon and Rehberger present directly collaborative sculptures and film works, many of which suggest feelings of abandonment and neglect, in addition to portraits in various media the two artists have created of one another. Externally, a billboard, visible en route from the airport to MACE, that normally advertises Cocoon Club, one of the largest parties on the island, will be altered by the artists using spray paint and illuminated letters to announce their exhibition instead. Another text work depicts the words ‘Something Else is Possible’ and will be displayed on a building in the old city that can also be clearly viewed from the balcony of MACE, playing with and questioning the physical definitions of the exhibition.

About the artists

Douglas Gordon was the recipient of the 1996 Turner Prize, the 1997 Venice Biennial's Premio 2000 Award, the 1998 Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the 2008 Roswitha Haftmann Prize, and the 2012 Käthe-Kollwitz-Prize. His work has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions, including 'Douglas Gordon', Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); 'Douglas Gordon: What do you want me to say? I am already dead', Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2006); 'Douglas Gordon: Timeline', The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006, travelled to MALBA Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires through 2007); 'Pretty much every word written, spoken, heard, overheard from 1989…', the MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto, Italy (2006); 'Superhumanatural,' the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2006); B'etween Darkness and Light: Works 1989–2007', Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2007); 'Blood, Sweat, Tears', DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2009); 'Douglas Gordon', Tate Britain, London (2010); and many others
 
In 2008 Gordon was Juror at the 65th International Venice Film Festival, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice and in 2012 he was the Jury president of CinemaXXI at the 07th Rome Film Festival, Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma, Rome. He lives and works in Berlin and Glasgow.
 
Tobias Rehberger was born in 1966 in Esslingen on the Neckar River, Germany. From 1987 to 1993 he studied under Thomas Bayrle and Martin Kippenberger at Frankfurt’s renowned Städelschule where he has been a professor of sculpture since 2001 and until recently also Deputy Rector of the Fine Arts Academy. Rehberger has been the recipient of many awards including, in 2009, the prestigious Golden Lion for best artist at the 53rd Venice Biennial. Exhibited internationally, Rehberger has had solo exhibitions at, among others Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2014); Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul (2012); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2008); Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2005); MCA Chicago (2000), as well as inclusion in numerous group and gallery shows in New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Milan, Rome, Brussels, Berlin, and Antwerp. His work is included in many key international collections.

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