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The British artist Liam Gillick (b. 1964) has been among the most prominent representatives for the development of conceptual art since the early 1990s. In 2009, he was selected to create the German Pavilion for the 53. Biennale in Venice. The German federal art- and exhibitions hall dedicates, for the first time both nationally and internationally, Liam Gellick a comprehensive solo exhibition. With over 60 pieces from two decades, late 1980s until his contribution to the German Pavilion 2009, the development of his work is shown through pieces and themes.

The 1990s were marked by the development of central themes and strategies, elaboration of a specific aesthetic and target course, counterbalance, and mutual interplay with the artist's concurrently created literary and theoretical texts. Towards the end of the 1990s, Liam Gillick began work on pieces under the title Discussion Island, Big Conference Centre. The piece presents itself as a place for potential discussion and debate about the central questions of our society. Gillick established the piece as the place for collective conversation, for the explanation of society's organisation, and also as a place for the development for future models of society. Literary and political utopias appear as reflective surfaces and as failed models for a different societal future. Since the middle of last decade, the artist turned to the theme of an abandoned factory under the title Construccion de Uno (2004). After the factory's closure, the workers return and try a new way of production and of reflection of the organisation of work.
 
The exhibition places Gillick's work for the German Pavilion "Wie würden sie sich verhalten? Eine Küchenkatze spricht" ("How would you behave? A kitchen cat speaks," 2009) in the context of his complete work, where this piece represents a projection surface of a kitchen as a place of communication, dialog, and debate. A private and familiar place, nonetheless planned, standardised worldwide and produced serially, the freedom it offers inside of socially-determined, standardised boundaries. The analysis of our society's condition does not end, not even in this unspectacular place of our daily lives.

The exhibition catalogue conveys, with more than 350 pictures and a noticeable emphasis on the last ten years, for the first time an overview over Liam Gillick's multifaceted artistic work. Important museum exhibitions, projects, sculptures and location-specific, short-term interventions are arranged and illustrate the development of an artistic practice which challenges the basic questions of the possibilities and functions of art in our societal reality. This visual foray is commented by Liam Gillick's own notations, notional fragments and comments, largely published for the first time.
Essays from Isabelle Moffat and Nicolas Bourriaud concentrate the view on central aspects of the pieces, some of which are discussed controversially.


April 1st until August 8th, 2010, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn

Exhibition's catalogue: Liam Gillick: "One long walk... two short piers..."
Hardcover, bound, Format 24,5 x 28 cm, 256 pages with approximately 500 colour pictures
bilingual version (German/English), Price for museum version: 29 €, bookshop version: 68 €
Snoeck Publisher, Köln, ISBN 978-3-940953-40-7 

www.bundeskunsthalle.de