Produced for the Scottish pavillion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), the film won its author the Turner Prize (2014). Duncan Campbell’s It for Others is a reflection on the Imperialism of objects in contemporary society. Explicitly influenced by Les statues meurent aussi, the film upsets its structure: the linearity and narrative consequentiality of the essay film which inspired it, give way to a discourse that’s fragmentary, uncertain and at times disorienting on the construction of the value and meaning of consumer goods.

The artist avails himself of a variety of different linguistic registers to guide us through reflections  on the caesurae Colonialism provokes in the cultures it subjugates; there’s a performance by the Michael Clark Company which deals abstractly with the theme of exchanging goods; and scenes of domestic life and anthropomorphic ketchup bottles. In a highly commercialized time when every commodity is subject to the rules of the global market, not even art can consider itself immune from this phenomenon.

Duncan CampbellBorn in Dublin in 1972, he lives and works in Glasgow. Through his films, he analyzes the major themes of history in order to explore the way in which grand social, political and personal narratives are handed down through time. His recent exhibitions include: Arbeit at the Kunsthall, Oslo (2015), Duncan Campbell at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2014), Scotland + Venice, Scottish pavillion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013); and the Turner Prize group exhibitions at Tate Britain (London, 2014); he has also partecipated in Manifesta 9 (Belgium, 2012), and the Gwangju Biennale (South Korea, 2010).