The Secret Agent

Stan Douglas's The Secret Agent gathers three linked works by the Vancouver artist: a film installation that moves Joseph Conrad's novel to 1970s Portugal, a photo series on Angola and New York, and a six-hour jazz film.

Ludion published the 192-page hardcover in October 2015 for the premiere of the installation at WIELS in Brussels. It carries the original script of The Secret Agent, with stills and production images. Douglas keeps Conrad's 1907 characters and plot but sets them in Lisbon after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. The book adds Disco Angola, eight staged photographs, four made in New York and four in Angola, which set New York nightlife of the seventies beside the Angolan civil war, and Luanda-Kinshasa, a film of eleven songs recorded in the legendary 30th Street Studio. Dirk Snauwaert wrote the foreword, Eric C.H. De Bruyn and Jason E. Smith contributed texts, and Séamus Kealy the afterword.

Douglas has shown at Documenta 9, 10 and 11 and at three Venice Biennials, and lives and works in Vancouver.