Featuring a new film and installation by Alexandre Singh commissioned for the Legion of Honor, A Gothic Tale draws inspiration from the eponymous literary tradition of nineteenth-century Europe as well as San Francisco’s place in film noir history with Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
Conceptualized with art historian Natalie Musteata, the exhibition premieres Singh’s debut short film, The Appointment, a mystery thriller of doubling and mistaken identity that embraces the fantastical and supernatural qualities of the Gothic tradition.
The doppelgänger motif reverberates through the film and selection of prints, sculptures, and paintings drawn from the Museums’ encyclopedic collection, which are installed in a striking scenography of mirrored walls.