LIAM GILLICK

Maureen Paley is pleased to present the second solo exhibition at the gallery by Liam Gillick. The exhibition will also be the occasion of the launch of the new monograph, From nineteen ninety A to nineteen ninety D published by JRP|Ringier.

This exhibition addresses time in relation to production and the development of creative communities. Combining works from the 1990s with new production the exhibition plays with the way groups develop their ideas in cohesion and tension with the individual. Drawing on anthropologist Mary Douglas’s interpretations of sociologist Ludwik Fleck, the exhibition juxtaposes works that were produced in collective environments in the 1990s with new structures and films produced alone. As such the exhibition reflects on the contradictions that arise between the individual and the group in relation to the production of art.

The title of the exhibition refers to Fleck and Douglas’s investigation of the way a thought style links group members via their shared ideas, how they communicate and the methods they employ. These ideas affect the art’s subjectivity and are reflected in a series of new text works.

A central work in the exhibition, A broadcast from 1887 on the Subject of our Time, was originally produced in 1996 and involved a “broadcast” directed towards a utopian community. The content of the broadcast is taken from Edward Bellamy’s book Looking Backward (1887) - which includes an account of a radio broadcast before the invention of the medium.

Also included in the exhibition is a deployment of the work, When Do We Need More Tractors? Five Plans, 1999 - a work where certain specific actions are outlined by the artist for others to fulfill. This work is combined with a new series of Discussion Platforms and a series of short films produced by the artist over the last two years.

“A truly isolated investigator is impossible (…). An isolated investigator without bias and tradition, without forces of mental society acting upon him, and without the effect of the evolution of that society, would be blind and thoughtless. Thinking is a collective activity (…). Its product is a certain picture, which is visible only to anybody who takes part in this social activity, or a thought which is also clear to the members of the collective only. What we do think and how we do see depends on the thought-collective to which we belong” - Ludwik Fleck, 1935

Selected solo exhibitions include: From 199C to 199D, Le Magasin Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France, 2014; November 1 – December 21, Liam Gillick and Louise Lawler, Casey Kaplan, New York, USA, 2013; From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA, 2012; Museum Stzuki, Lodz, Poland, 2011; One long walk… Two short piers…, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, 2010; How will you behave: A kitchen cat speaks, German Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2009; Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, 2008, travelling to Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2008; A short text on the possibility of creating an economy of equivalence, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2005; McNamara Motel, CAC Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Malaga, Malaga, Spain, 2005; The Wood Way, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, 2002.

Selected group exhibitions include: Performa 15, New York, USA (forthcoming 2015); 14th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey, 2015; All-Imitate-Act, Holland Festival International performing arts, Museumplein, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2015, travelling to LUMA Foundation, Arles, France, 2015; Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract art and society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, 2015; Swiss Pavilion, 14th Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2014; DLA Piper Series: Constellations, Tate Liverpool, UK, 2013; Looking Back for the Future, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, 2012; Liam Gillick and Lawrence Weiner: A Syntax of Dependency, M HKA Museum van Hedendaage Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium, 2011; 8th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China, 2010.