Douglas Gordon

Douglas Gordon

Self-Portrait of You + Me, After the Factory

Gagosian Gallery Through Dec. 15

"Unlike “24-Hour Psycho,” a signature work in which Douglas Gordon slowed down Hitchcock’s classic horror film to create a glacially paced but mesmerizing spectacle, here he resorts to splashier measures. Mr. Gordon has taken commercially available posters of Warhol’s icon paintings, burned them and mounted the remains on mirrors.

The initial impression is of a Warhol-besotted art school project that borrows heavily from the slash-and-burn aesthetic of punk. The cringe factor increases as the checklist describes the materials with apparently unironic pretension as “smoke and mirrors.” The grotesque leanings recall Dada collages or the work of Linder, a British punk and postpunk singer and artist who had a retrospective this summer at P.S. 1. But when you walk into the main gallery, painted and carpeted in black, and witness a few dozen of these charred Jackie, Elvis, Marilyn and Muhammad Ali images — as well as Warhol self-portraits — staring back at you with your reflection in the mirrors, the effect is oddly powerful, like a glimpse into the blaze as a contemporary Rome burns.

Does it matter that Mr. Gordon is a Scotsman? Not really. The question is whether, in borrowing from Warhol, Mr. Gordon adds enough to make the exchange worthwhile. Warhol’s icon paintings themselves functioned as burnt-out shells, holding up a mirror to the country at perhaps its most Narcissus-like moment. Mr. Gordon’s show feels gimmicky, leaning heavily on the tired legs of Warhol and punk subversiveness, but the installation does offer an over-the-top nihilist update." MARTHA SCHWENDENER, New York Times.