KANSAS CITY, MO.- Stan Douglas (b. 1960) is a Canadian artist whose work investigates the intersection of technology, image-making, and collective memory through the mediums of film and photography. For Stan Douglas: Metronome at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, three major video works are showcased, each focused on the theme of music. As an audiophile and former DJ, Douglas uses music as a metaphor for social and political conditions and a means for global cultural exchange. By intertwining historical moments with the present, his work highlights themes of memory, social unity, conflict, and the complexities of cultural interaction.

The featured works in Stan Douglas: Metronome include ISDN (2022), which connects rappers from the UK and Egypt through the now-obsolete ISDN technology, exploring social struggles and aspirations. Luanda-Kinshasa (2013) imagines a historic jam session at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, creating a utopian musical space where different nationalities come together. Douglas’s early work, Hors-champs (1992), features Black expatriate musicians improvising a "free jazz" session, while his photographic series Disco Angola (2012) and Crowds and Riots (2008–21) delve deeper into themes of collective memory and cultural transference. Through these pieces, Douglas blends narratives and geographies, challenging binary thinking and reimagining both history and the present.

Stan Douglas: Metronome is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Kevin Moore. A catalogue of the exhibition, titled Stan Douglas: Ghostlight, is published by Dancing Foxes Press in collaboration with the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, Hessel Museum of Art, Tivoli, New York, featuring new essays by CCS Bard curator Lauren Cornell, Kevin Moore, and other prominent scholars.