 (b. 1960) has created films, photographs, and other multidisciplinary projects that investigate the parameters of their respective mediums. His ongoing inquiry into technology’s role in image making, and how those mediations infiltrate and shape collective memory, has resulted in works that are at once specific in their historical and cultural references and broadly accessible. 

Douglas was born in Vancouver and studied at Emily Carr College of Art in Vancouver in the early 1980s. He was one of the earliest artists to be represented by David Zwirner, where he had his first American solo exhibition in 1993—the second show in the gallery’s history.

In 2022, the artist represented his native Canada at the Venice Biennale, where he debuted a major video installation, 

 (2022)—now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York—and a related body of photographs. A solo exhibition featuring this body of work, 

, traveled around Canada with stops at The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (fall 2022); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (February–April 2023); and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (September 2023–October 2024). A solo exhibition also titled 

 was subsequently staged in 2023 at De Pont Museum, Tilburg, the Netherlands. This body of work inaugurated David Zwirner’s Los Angeles location in 2023 and was on view at the Parque de Serralves in Porto, Portugal, in 2024.

The artist’s permanent public commission 

 was unveiled in Moynihan Train Hall, Penn Station, New York, in 2021. This body of work, commissioned by Empire State Development in partnership with Public Art Fund on the occasion of the dedication of New York City’s new Moynihan Train Hall, is composed of nine vignettes arranged into four thematic panels that explore the rich history of Penn Station.

Douglas’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide since the 1980s. A major solo exhibition, 

, is currently on view at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, marking the first institutional survey of the artist’s work in the United States in over 20 years. The accompanying monograph will be published in conjunction with the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, where another solo exhibition of Douglas’s work is currently on view. Previous solo presentations of the artist’s work have been held at DAS MINSK Kunsthaus, Potsdam, Germany (2022); Phi Foundation, Montreal (2022); Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax (2022); Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection, Paris (2021); Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (2021); Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin (2019–2020); Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg (2018); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2016); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria (2016); Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden (2016); WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels (2015); and Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2015). 

In 2013, a major survey of the artist’s work, 

, was presented at Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain in Nîmes, France. It traveled as 

 to Haus der Kunst, Munich; Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen; and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin through 2015. Additional solo exhibitions include the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2014); Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2012); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2007); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005); Serpentine Gallery, London (2002); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1994); and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1987).

Douglas’s work has been featured in the Venice Biennale in 1990, 2001, 2005, 2019, and 2022, and in documenta in 1992, 1997, and 2002. Douglas’s first multimedia theater production, 

, debuted at The Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver, in March 2014 and has subsequently been hosted by the Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich; Edinburgh International Festival; Canadian Stage, Toronto; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; De Singel, Antwerp; and Center for the Art of Performance, University of California, Los Angeles (co-organized by Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

Douglas has been the recipient of notable awards, including the Audain Prize for Visual Art (2019); the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2016); the third annual Scotiabank Photography Award (2013); and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, New York (2012). In 2021, Douglas was knighted as a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2023 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Simon Fraser University, Greater Vancouver. Douglas was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2024.

Work by the artist is held in major museum collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, United Kingdom; Vancouver Art Gallery; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Douglas lives and works in Vancouver.

Douglas' first US survey charts his global influence and innovation across 40 works and reimagines D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Since the 1980s, Canadian artist Stan Douglas (b. 1960) has created films, installations, photographs and other multidisciplinary projects that address moments of rupture where "history could go one way or the other." Across formats, his images recall things that haunt: unresolved moments, political tumult and violent turning points; plots that retain a hold, however imperceptible, on the present. His work operates within the genres of cinema, photography and theater to present a point of view that is always staged. Douglas' rigorous explorations of these charged histories show us how to "think historically in the present" and frame contemporary crises in a longer timeline. This book was published in conjunction with Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Stan Douglas: Ghostlight

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.