UNNATURALHISTORIE: Douglas Gordon @ Le Palais des Papes, Avignon

Douglas Gordon’s video installation, UNNATURALHISTORIE, takes place in the grand chapel of the Palais des Papes, Avignon, and consists of a number of video works showing various animals going about their usual, albeit displaced, animal business. Each of the animals, we are told, has been specifically chosen for its symbolic, religious significance. Taking centre stage are two massive projections, each depicting a snake charmer antagonizing a couple of very deadly looking snakes. Standing upright in attack position, the snakes are utterly entranced by provocation, occasionally snapping their venomous jaws at the charmers’ annoying gestures. Oddly, for a Gordon work, this particular piece suffers a dearth of drama and intrigue – the charmers lack any kind of finesse and the only power they seem to cast over the poor reptiles is the ability to properly piss them off.

More interesting than any snake-sparring is the lowly donkey. Walking around in the enormous grand chapel, it represents a kind of Christ-like modesty, all doughy-eyed and unassuming against the imposing stone walls. And it is here, against this backdrop, that the donkey highlights the degree to which Christian art and architecture veers so completely from the modesty of the New Testament. The Palais des Papes, after all, is not a symbol of Christian piety and devotion but of Papal authority and power. Here the poor little donkey, dwarfed by the Gothic monumentality of the chapel, seems to represent this very irony.

The Scottish, Turner Prize-winning artist is said to holiday in Avignon every summer, thus the city is also host to a generous retrospective show just down the road at the Lambert Collection. If the installation at the palace lacks any venom, the retrospective thoroughly makes up for it.