Tuesday, December 2, 5PM
Cochrane-Woods Art Center, 157
5540 S. Greenwood Avenue
"The Knot of Which I Speak Cannot be Knotted"
The contemporary artist finds themselves in a historically unique situation – permanently suspended between obligations and desires. Endlessly contemporary, today’s artists are called upon to provide an aesthetic response to dizzying ethical and moral demands while simultaneously being held apart by a system that requires them to take increasingly subjective positions. Liam Gillick will look at three of his exhibitions from over 30 years of work and attempt to chart the course that led us to our current situation and through example and anecdote attempt to recuperate the strategies that have been overwritten by recent histories. In the process we will track the tension between the individual and the group, the flipping of intentions and results, the rise of the curatorial agent and the emergence of the contemporary art historian.
One of the most prominent figures in international contemporary art, Liam Gillick is an artist and writer whose body of work extends from sculptural objects with references to architecture and design to essays and lectures as well as curatorial and collaborative projects. All form part of – and are informed by – an art practice that in particular focuses on conditions of production, economy, labor, and organization in a post-industrial world.
Liam Gillick’s visit is sponsored by the Department Art History and the Wigeland Fund in the Arts and Humanities Division.