Cover image of the review

Douglas Lance Gibson: What Was Once Yesterday Today & Tomorrow


25 Nov 2017
Tolarno Galleries 16 Nov - 16 Dec 2017

As I was about to leave Tolarno Galleries after spending some time with Douglas Lance Gibson’s What Was Once Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, his first show with the gallery, I was stopped by two men. One, who I assume was some sort of building manager, informed me that a theft in the gallery had just been reported and politely requested that I remain on the premises while we waited for the police to arrive; the other, who I later guessed belonged to the Victorian office of the Liberal Party housed one floor down from Tolarno (maybe the thief got lost on the way up the stairs?), stood silently by with a solemn expression. Having half an hour on my hands to kill, I happily complied with my somewhat arbitrary detention and waited for the police to arrive. Being the only visitor to the gallery at the time when the theft was noticed, I was of course the number one suspect, though when the police eventually showed up, they didn’t seem too hopeful as they casually searched my bag before declaring me free to go. Before the arrival of the police, I took the opportunity to spend a little longer with the works in the show, and the oddly dragging temporality of waiting provided the perfect attunement with which to appreciate Gibson’s photographs; works that are concerned above all with complexities and paradoxes of time.

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