Stan Douglas/ Mid-Century Studio, Victoria Miro Gallery - review

The life-sized black and white prints in this gripping exhibition seem to have emerged from a Fifties American photography archive. Their narratives range from Hollywood films to Chicago mobsters and New York fashions, and each is a frozen, unexplained, perfectly choreographed moment. The reality is that they continue the dramatic scenarios created by the eminent Vancouver film-maker and photographer Stan Douglas. Here, he immersed himself in the mid-century to reinvent imagined scenes and reinterpret those from the city’s newspaper archives.

A meticulous researcher, he provides perfect costumes, props and locations, actors, magicians and models and, crucially, contemporary lighting. Hollywood studio lights illuminate skin textures and fabric details to forensic levels (in Hair, the model’s coiffeur twist shot from behind holds a Hitchcockian Marnie terror), and flashlights associated with Weegee’s nocturnal forays build tension brilliantly — three perfectly positioned dice players, with trilbies and loose dollars evoking Prohibition. Working with digital cameras, Douglas switches to dark-room printing to capture the era.

Tension swims through the exhibition but is strongest with the fight at a hockey match. Its medieval, painterly composition sees each character perfectly described and utterly self-contained, and that choreographic brilliance applies also to a cricket match where players freeze, searching for a ball. Here, Douglas extends the narrative by including mostly non-white players in reference to his own racial identity, and to the significance of the Commonwealth in cricket. It adds a surprise depth to the collection.

Stan Douglas/ Mid-Century Studio runs until May 26 (020 7336 8109, victoria-miro.com).

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