Liam Gillick

SurpriseBoth the exhibition itself and the book on the extensive Bonn retrospective of the Biennale participants (solo show in the German Pavilion 2009) have a number of surprises in store. Above all, the book provides a comprehensive overview—compiled by Liam Gillick himself—of the artist’s work, which has accumulated in the past few years to number well in excess of 2,000 works for solo shows and participations. (Presumably, the criticised Biennial contribution will be of particular interest.) The central motifs of Liam Gillick’s works become apparent in the wide-ranging exhibition, but above all in this book. Be it in texts, sculptures, or installations, Liam Gillick’s quest has continually been something of a causal chain that investigates concepts such as utopia, parallelism, space, time, production in terms of their differences. In so doing, the artist isn’t merely concerned with the conditions for production and the resulting aesthetic approach, but rather he seems—as the successor of a radical modernity—to be still searching for a real place for utopia. Exhibition: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 01/04–08/08/2010