Douglas Gordon Receives Efebo d'Oro Award in Palermo

Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (Glasgow, 1966) was awarded the Efebo d'Oro prize in Palermo on December 3, 2016, at the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. The award recognizes the intersection of narrative and cinema. Gordon, who won the Turner Prize in 1996 at age 30, presented a new video installation titled "Functional Family" at Palazzo Sant'Elia (until December 18, 2016). The installation features seven monitors showing works including "Once upon a time, Without the sun" (2008), "Unnaturalhistorie I" (2008), and "Unnaturalhistorie II" (2008), depicting a family of snake charmers in Morocco. Gordon described it as "a fluid story about the Mediterranean and for the Mediterranean," noting Palermo's historical role as a melting pot of civilizations, with street signs in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew. One monitor shows "Self-portrait in Tangier" (2012), documenting a Moroccan knife sharpener in Tangier with Gordon's reflection in a spoon. Gordon's earlier works include "24 Hour Psycho" (1993), a silent projection of Hitchcock's "Psycho" at two frames per second, and "K.364: A Journey by train," a double-screen film following two Polish-Jewish musicians retracing their families' journey from Berlin to Poznan and Warsaw, featuring Mozart's Sinfonia concertante. Gordon first visited Sicily at age 18, traveling to Lipari, Salina, and Stromboli.