DOUGLAS GORDON

Afterimage by Nina Strand:

Douglas Gordin. Taken by the author seeing the exhibition WALL WORKS & SCULPTURES at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zürich, 16th of May, 2025.

It could be the image of the watermelon that lingers in my mind as I sit at Zürich Flughafen, waiting for a flight from a non-EU country back to my own. The reopening of Fotomuseum Winterthur has been reassuring—it’s a place where lens-based art is taken seriously. And this series on how we relate to emojis in our digital world feels important, especially that symbol this weekend, being in the host country of the music competition, where one nation should probably not have been allowed to participate.

There’s so much to take in after the exhibition—and from my afternoon wandering Zürich, just twenty minutes away by train. The city holds it, too, in small ways: graffiti on the walls that reads Free Gaza. It stays with me, especially when I see a work made of scaffold dust sheets and other materials, said to suggest that buildings—and maybe societies, too—are always in progress, never truly complete. I think of it again as I pass a man sitting in a window, sipping wine and watching the people below. It’s a clever, much cheaper way to people-watch, but I wonder if he’s sitting up there alone because he’s afraid to join the rest of the world. Does he need help?

When I can’t see more art—everything is closed—I have a glass of wine at Kronenhalle, a tip from two different friends. I sit next to some artists and gallerists speaking in excited tones about an opening yesterday at a place that, sadly, wasn’t on my itinerary. They’re also talking about next year’s Venice Biennale and what will happen now that its curator has passed—something I’ve also thought about. Where do all her visions for next year’s edition go?

There’s something familiar about the woman sitting in the corner of their group. I want to look her up, but instead, I ask if they could watch my things while I look at the art in the restaurant. When I return, she laughs and says she never took her eyes off my stuff. I want to move closer to their conversation.

Later, at the airport, I look up images of one of the most famous Swiss artists I know—and it is her. I got her. I got all the art. But what is it I’m really looking for, walking and taking trams all over these two cities to see as much as I can in the short time I’m here? What does it help, anyone suffering?

Waiting for my plane, I thought I was sitting down to write about the fruit emoji. But instead, I think of a text work I saw on one of the gallery walls: Where does it hurt? I mumble to myself: Everywhere.