‘Croque Mort’ is a historical series of large colour photographs of a baby biting her toes. Taken in extreme close-up, the series avoids the sentimentality that may be implied in its subject matter, to focus instead on the rather unsettling image of a body biting itself. The sense of unease is emphasised by Gordon’s choice of title, which refers to an old French term for mortician, deriving from the practice of biting the toes of a corpse to check that it was really dead. Douglas Gordon uses both appropriated and original material to explore contrasting themes such as temptation and fear, life and death, good and evil and innocence and guilt.