From The Independent:
He is a Turner-prize winning artist who has represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and made an award-winning film capturing the athletic beauty and grace of the French footballer, Zinedine Zidane.
Celebrated as a former YBA and seminal figure on the international arts scene, one might assume that Douglas Gordon’s artworks would be revered in his Scottish homeland.
Not so, according to Gordon, who has vowed never again to accept a public commission in Scotland after a particularly unpleasant experience in which his proposed artwork was heavily criticised and he was left to cover his own expenses.
The University of Edinburgh invited the artist – whose work has been shown and bought by the National Galleries of Scotland – to create a work for its Main Library. It was due to be unveiled in the autumn this year, when the library’s redeveloped ground opened.
Instead, the artist pulled out of the project in disgust after his first proposal for the space was frowned upon for not being positive enough. Later, he was informed that he would have to cover travel and accommodation expenses to the launch of the project.
Gordon, who is represented by the powerful Gagosian Gallery, said he felt “humiliated” and that he would “never again accept a public commission in my home country”.
“I felt I was being treated like a 16-year-old apprentice and not a professional,” he added.
He took the bold step to speak out about his grievance after saying that he was not the first artist to be handled so shabbily by institutions commissioning public artworks. “Many artists are treated disrespectfully by the institutions they are making commissions for,” he said. “Most think they cannot afford to say no, but I can, so I had to.”
His initial idea was to inscribe the words, “Every time you turn a page, it dies a little” in gold letters on a wall inside the library. But several members of the advisory board took against it for being too negative when he handed in his sketches early this year….
December 7th, 2009 at 1:14AM
Well, but that is a terrible motto for a library to put on a wall. A professional might suit their artwork to the context.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:21AM
I agree – it’s awful.
Just the kind of thing an artist who was compelled to read BOOKS lest he fail out of art school might come up with.
Ugh.
The "visual" generation.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:48AM
I am saddened by the effrontery of patrons telling a modern artist what they don’t like. Surely Scotland has a human rights tribunal to which poor Mr. Gordon can refer these vile Philistines.