A Divided Self I and II
About this artwork
On two monitor screens two arms - one hairy and the other shaven - fight one another on a bed sheet. On one monitor the hairy arm defeats the shaven, while the reverse happens on the second monitor. Gradually the viewer becomes aware that the arms belong to the same person suggesting a battle between two halves of the self. The work recalls Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (1886) and the split personality of the key protagonist. The work’s title comes from Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing's (1927-89) pivotal and controversial texts on mental illness 'The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness' (1960).
Updated before 2020
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artist:Douglas Gordon (born 1966) Scottish
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title:A Divided Self I and II
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date created:1996
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materials:Video, 2 monitors, colour, 15 minutes
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object type:
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credit line:ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Presented by the artist 2012
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accession number:AR01179
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gallery:
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subject:
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Gordon was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He has worked in video, photography, sound, text and other media and uses predominantly 'found' material. Gordon is fascinated by our binary nature and our tendency to split things into...
