It’s difficult to dig under the sheen of colored Plexiglas. You may scratch at its surface, tap it, and click your nails against its brilliant color, but still fail to uncover a point of entry. In Liam Gillick’s work, reticence of this nature is the point. Though it’s hard to deny the formal beauty of his objects, Gillick’s ambition lies not in the allure of their pristine surfaces but in the discourse surrounding them.
Gillick is an artist, critic, architect, designer, and writer, and his creative output reflects the synthesis of these roles. In addition to his signature Plexiglas sculptures, he creates installations of sculptural text, such as this one for his show Literally (with Projects 79) at the Museum of Modern Art:
These text works introduce a certain kind of discourse into the gallery space and remind viewers of the significant body of writing Gillick has produced in his ongoing examination of social structures and ideologies.
Gillick’s work is known for its evasive maneuvers, which shun singular interpretations in favor of opening up new avenues of thought. In 1848!!! (2010), a collaborative film recorded for No More Presence at the invitation of curator Ajay Kurian (organizer of White Flag’s current show, of which Gillick is also a part), the viewer sees the narrator address someone off-screen, but her words are made inaudible by the soundtrack of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. A paper banner displays the transcript of the narration, which relays the revolutionary historical events that took place in Europe in the late 1890s; but viewers are left to puzzle-out the unstated association. This maneuvering of relationships and shifting of content creates ambiguity within apparent historical and ideological authority.
Art, according to Gillick, is “a convenient term for a mid-space location,” and a “mid-space” is exactly the space he sets up for viewers. His work received a retrospective, entitled Three perspectives and a short scenario (2009-10), at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Gillick was also a representative artist for the German Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale. White Flag’s current exhibit, Which Witch is Which? and/or Summertime, curated by Ajay Kurian, includes a collaborative film of Liam Gillick’s, which is on view until December 18.
Vicinato 2 (made in collaboration with Douglas Gordan, Carsten Holler, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija) opens with a nighttime shot of Monte Carlo and a robotic narrator. The developing “narrative”, which consists of shots of the four friends conversing and occasional scenes of the city, is based on a conversation between the film collaborators. “When you feel good, you are more likely to speculate and less likely to plan,” says the the robot narrator, while one of the friends states, “Real change is right in front of your eyes. You’re just not lazy enough to see it. You have to be drunk, I guess.” The video piece introduces theoretical discourse into the space, functioning much as Gillick’s text pieces do. In this way, past ideologies float next to more present ways of thinking, in a seemingly endless open-ended dialogue.
Which Witch is Which? and/or Summertime is on view through Saturday, December 18. For more information about this exhibit and other events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.