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Douglas Gordon — Self-Portrait of You + Me (Jane Birkin)
Douglas Gordon

Self-Portrait of You + Me (Jane Birkin)

A burnt and partially destroyed photograph of Jane Birkin is layered against mirrored glass, so that the viewer's own reflection merges with the fading, damaged image of the iconic actress and singer. Gordon's act of burning collapses the boundary between destruction and preservation, while the mirror implicates the viewer in an intimate, unsettling exchange with the vanishing figure. The work probes themes of desire, celebrity, memory, and identity, questioning who truly possesses an image — its subject, its destroyer, or the person gazing back at themselves within it.

Medium
burnt photograph, mirrored glass, in artist's frame

🔨 Auction Lot

Contemporary Art Day Sale

October 16, 2014

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About this work

Douglas Gordon, Self-Portrait of You + Me (Jane Birkin)

A burnt and partially destroyed photograph of Jane Birkin is layered against mirrored glass, so that the viewer's own reflection merges with the fading, damaged image of the iconic actress and singer. Gordon's act of burning collapses the boundary between destruction and preservation, while the mirror implicates the viewer in an intimate, unsettling exchange with the vanishing figure. The work probes themes of desire, celebrity, memory, and identity, questioning who truly possesses an image — its subject, its destroyer, or the person gazing back at themselves within it.

Medium
burnt photograph, mirrored glass, in artist's frame
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Monochrome, Conceptual, Photograph, Mixed Media, Experimental, Introspective, Reflective, Scottish, Self-Portrait, Contemporary

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