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Douglas Gordon
Black Burns
2017
Life size replica based upon John Flaxmans Robert Burns sculpture at Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Black Marquinia marble
185cm tall.
Douglas Gordon’s installation, Black Burns, responds to the full-length marble statue of the poet Robert Burns, which stands in The Great Hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
The original white marble statue was created by John Flaxman in 1824 and originally housed in Thomas Hamilton’s imposing Greek revivalist Burns Monument in the south of Edinburgh’s Calton Hill. The sculpture now occupies pride of place in the heart of the building designed to enshrine Scotland’s greatest figures.
Gordon’s work often takes as its subject something familiar and explores the ways in which memories and expectations surrounding it can be thrown off-balance by subtle interventions in the way it is presented and displayed.
