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LIAM GILLICK |
Liam Gillick is as much a maker of objects as he is a theoretician, writer, and teacher who has worked widely in the fields of design and architecture. Born in England in 1964, he studied at Goldsmith’s College in London before moving to New York City where he has taught at Columbia University since 1997. It is difficult to separate Gillick’s artworks from his complex and on-going intellectual discourse about the interaction of social, moral, political, and ideological forces in the environment. From corporate office suites to communes, bars, and lobbies, he investigates the semiotics of architecture in fictional yet non-narrative essays and books, installations, and objects such as this one.
Local Discussion Screen is an example of Gillick’s sculptural work in which he appropriates the forms of corporate office architecture. With allusions to the sound proof barriers used to separate office cubicles, the title of this work suggests that the artist intends it to encourage communication, not limit it. The asymmetrical and elegantly balanced linear composition also recalls early modern art and architecture associated with such utopian movements as the de Stijl group in Holland. Recently Gillick’s critique of the ways in which capitalism and corporate culture shape the environment has focused on the legacies of such communal and socialist thinking. His sculptures and installations are visual expressions of this broad-based theoretical analysis of the ways in which ideology is manifested in architecture and how, in turn, architecture affects social interaction.
- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects