Originally published in Campaign, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto.
1989
Exhibition 84 Diagrams at Karsten Schubert, London. Computer drawings of modernist building façades are drawn using an Apple SE30 and printed onto Ingres paper. The drawings are passed around by visitors at the opening reception. The artist considers the work to be a “parallel activity,” a process of critically engaging with other disciplines alongside art. This interest in parallel activities continues for the next few years.
1990
Reviews Les Ateliers du Paradise, an exhibition by Pierre Joseph, Philippe Perrin, and Philippe Parreno at Air de Paris, Nice, for Artscribe magazine.
Starts to write regularly for Artscribe, Art Monthly, Documents sur l’art, and other magazines and journals. Also begins writing a catalogue essays on other artists from this point onward.
Begins Documents series with Henry Bond. The artists receive a daily list of notable forthcoming events from a press agency and attend as photographer and journalist. One hundred events are attended and documented over three years, including the resignation of Margaret Thatcher, the inquiry into the Chernobyl disaster in London, and an early meeting of Lega Nord in Milan.
1991
Coedits Technique Anglaise: Current Trends in British Art with Andrew Renton for Thames & Hudson. The book is a survey of recent British art, with projects by the artists and a roundtable discussion with Maureen Paley, Karsten Schubert, Andrew Renton, and Lynne Cooke.
Participates in No Man’s Time, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud and Eric Troncy at Villa Arson in Nice. The exhibition also features Angela Bulloch, Philippe Parreno, Allen Ruppersberg, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.
1992
Participates as artist and curator in Molteplici Cultura, organized by Carolyn Christov Bakargiev.
Designs a book as contribution to 12 British Artists at Barbara Gladstone in New York.
Gives title to and participates in the group exhibition Lying On Top of a Building, the Clouds Look No Nearer Than They Had When I Was Lying in the Street at Monika Spruth and Esther Schipper, Cologne, including Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Fischli Weiss, Angela Bulloch, Rosemarie Trockel, and others.
Organizes The Speaker Project at the ICA, London, a curated sound project including John Baldessari, Christian Marclay, Lawrence Weiner, Karen Kilimnik, Liz Larner, Angela Bulloch, and others.
First solo exhibition at in Nice, titled McNamara, Hog Bikes and GRSSPR. The exhibition takes place in an apartment in Nice. Franz West produces an concurrent exhibition for the apartment next door.
Organizes and executes Instructions at Gio’ Marconi in Milan. A curated project addressing the legacy of conceptual art in Britain. The artworks are produced by the artist according to the invited artist’s instructions. Artists included Adam Chodzko, Gary Hume, Gillian Wearing, and Jeremy Deller.
1993
Last works produced in the Documents series with Henry Bond.
Proposes a social center for young people as a public artwork for the city of Milan. The project is variously known as Milan House, AC/DC Joy Division House, and Social Center for Teenagers for Milan. The project is not accepted or executed.
Takes part in Backstage at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, curated by Barbara Steiner and Stefan Schmidt-Wulffen. Exhibits Information Room, which displays research material and magazine cuttings. Other artists include Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Sean Landers, Heimo Zobernig, Philippe Parreno, Tobias Rehberger, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
1994
Participates in Surface de Réparation, curated by Eric Troncy at the FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, with Rirkrit Tiravanija, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, and others.
Organizes a parallel communication structure for the exhibition Lost Paradise, curated by Barbara Steiner, at the Kunstraum, Vienna.
Takes part in The Institute of Cultural Anxiety, curated by Jeremy Millar at the ICA, London.
First solo exhibition in Germany with Esther Schipper in Cologne. Titled McNamara, the work comprises a short animated film about former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and head of the RAND Corporation Herman Kahn. The film is accompanied by a full-length movie script that becomes the source for a number of subsequent works. The work is considered the first of a number of “parallel histories” that will also include the books Erasmus Is Late and Underground (Fragments of Future Histories).
Writes the catalogue essay for Wall to Wall, at the Serpentine Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, South Bank Centre, Serpentine Gallery, and Southampton City Art Gallery. An exhibition of site-specific wall paintings including Barbara Kruger, Lawrence Weiner, and Lothar Baumgarten.
Begins to organize a series of weekly artist talks at Goldsmiths’ College, which continues until 1997. Invited speakers include Mark Dion, Sarah Lucas, Franz West, and Steve McQueen.
First solo exhibition with Maureen Paley.
1995
Publishes Philippe Parreno’s book Snow Dancing for the company G-W Press (which the artist established in 1992 with Jack Wendler in London). Later they produce the book of the film Vicinato by Carsten Höller, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Publishes Erasmus Is Late with Book Works, London. A group of people are waiting in a London house for the arrival of Erasmus Darwin, brother of Charles Darwin. While they wait, Erasmus Darwin tours the London of 1997, two years in the future, looking for sites of free thinking. The book is illustrated by the artist’s mother, Gillian Gillick.
Publishes Ibuka! for the Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart. The book is the outline for a musical based on Erasmus Is Late. The book and associated exhibition are organized by Nicolaus Schafhausen. By accident, Ibuka! is published before the book it is based on.
Produces a video exhibition titled Faction for the Royal Danish Academy of Arts in Copenhagen. Artists, video magazines, and commercial companies are invited to be part of the project.
The Moral Maze takes place at Le Consortium in Dijon in collaboration with Philippe Parreno. Experts in strategic thinking are invited to be interrogated by the artists over a number of days in Dijon. The specialists include economists, political strategists, and educationalists. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Carsten Höller, Maurizio Cattelan, and Lothar Hempel are present. Douglas Gordon asks for all his text works to date to be sprayed onto the white walls with gloss white paint.
Invited to make a solo exhibition at the CCC in Tours and presents a curated sound project titled Stoppage. The artist rearranges the bookshop and changes some of the ceiling structure, a gesture that anticipates the later discussion platforms. Jorge Pardo sends a rocking chair instead of a sound work. The work travels to the Villa Arson in Nice later that year.
First solo exhibition in New York, Part Three, at Basilico Fine Arts.
Alongside Henry Bond, participates in Brilliant: New Art from London, curated by Richard Flood at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. They present the complete Documents Series as reference prints.
1996
Publishes jointly authored text Forget about the Ball and Get On with the Game with Rirkrit Tiravanija in Parkett.
Everyday Holiday, in collaboration with Gabriel Kuri, takes place at Magasin, Grenoble. The artists designate certain days as special holidays such as Physicists’ Day and Preschool Children’s Day.
First major exhibition of discussion platforms in the solo exhibition The What If? Scenario at Robert Prime gallery, founded by Tommaso Corvi-Mora and Gregorio Magnani in London. From this point, focus turns away from parallel activities and parallel histories toward a mediation of the aesthetic and cultural changes under neoliberalism.
Takes part in Traffic, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at the CAPC, Bordeaux. Exhibits a table tennis table covered in glitter with no net accompanied by texts about who controls the near future.
McNamara is included in Nach Weimar, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Klaus Biesenbach at the Landesmuseum, Weimar.
Participates in Life/Live, a survey of artist-run spaces, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris.
1997
Included in documenta X, Kassel. Writes a text about a fictional meeting in 1972 that proposes documenta and the city of Kassel become a permanent exhibition without end and inserts it in the documenta archive. Exhibits a discussion platform and screen.
Takes part in Enterprise at the ICA, Boston, along with Rirkrit Tiravanija.
The book Discussion Island/Big Conference Centre is published by the Orchard Gallery, Derry, and the Kunstverein in Ludwigsburg. The book is a fiction that addresses how the future might be imagined in a post-utopian context.
Sailing Alone around the World: A Correspondence with Douglas Gordon is published in Parkett.
Begins teaching ten days a year at Columbia University. The class is run in the form of two week-long seminars that change form each year.
1998
Writes Prevision, a text for the catalogue of an exhibition by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, and Philippe Parreno at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris. The essay addresses the way thinking about the future might be rethought under neoliberal globalization.
Begins a regular column for Art & Text titled Lobby. The title of the column references the political sense of lobbying and the lobby as an architectural battleground.
Works with a group of advisors to create The Trial of Pol Pot in collaboration with Philippe Parreno at Magasin, Grenoble.
Solo exhibition Révision at the Villa Arson, Nice.
Publishes Ein Rückblick aus dem Jahre 2000 auf 1997 with Matthew Brannon for the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst as a contribution to the exhibition 1+3 = 4 x 1.
Perché magazine in Milan publishes Liam Gillick and Adrian Piper in Conversation.
Composes the music for Sarah Morris’s film Midtown and continues to produce the music for her twelve subsequent films.
1999
Should the future help the past? is published in the Afterall magazine pilot issue.
David, a large solo exhibition curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen, opens at the Frankfurter Kunstverein. The starting point is the final unmade film by Stanley Kubrick, which was provisionally titled David. The film finally appeared a few years after the exhibition with the title AI. One large room within the exhibition is designed to host a conference on art criticism. First installation of Applied Resignation Platform, a replacement of the existing ceiling with a series of transparent, colored Plexiglas panels.
Solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Glarus, curated by Beatrix Ruf. Includes a tape/slide work about Thamesmead in South London, where Clockwork Orange was filmed. The exhibition is accompanied by a calendar that runs across the forthcoming millennium.
Lukas & Sternberg, Berlin, publishes a book of selected writings titled Five or Six.
2000
Solo exhibition at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, titled Consultation Filter, curated by Susanne Gaensheimer, is accompanied by first survey catalogue, published by Oktagon, Cologne, and the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
On the invitation of curator Suzanne Cotter, presents Applied Complex Screen, a temporary commission for the exterior of the of the Hayward Gallery, London, an icon of Brutalist architecture in Britain completed in 1968 and designed by a group of architects that included Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk, and Ron Herron, who were part of Archigram. The vertical screen is sited over the main window of the office used for the planning of exhibitions.
First institutional exhibition in the UK, Renovation Filter, Recent Past, and Near Future, at Arnolfini, Bristol.
Works in collaboration with Maria Lind on the exhibition What If/Tänk Om: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Takes the role of a “filter” and focuses on the exhibition design and mediation of the project. Artists include Rita McBride, Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Pae White.
Collaborates with Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija on the production of the film Vicinato 2. Writes the music and designs title sequence. The script is developed collaboratively.
First exhibition at Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York.
2001
Releases CD of music titled Liam Gillick Meets Scott Olson in Japan, on the Whatness label, Frankfurt.
First exhibition with Eva Presenhuber, Firststepcousinbarprize, at Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich.
Participates in Century City, at Tate Modern with Henry Bond, presenting a selection from the Documents series archive.
Constructs large screening room in the attic space of Kunst-Werke as contribution to 2nd Berlin Biennale. The first half of a short text, written on the ceiling, relates to Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking about the cultural and corporate spheres. The second half of the text is located in the lobby of a large office building on the other side of Berlin.
Takes part in the collaborative project Annlee with Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno and exhibits resulting film as part of an outdoor installation, Annlee You Proposes, at Tate Britain, London.
Develops and produces Dedalic Convention with Annette Kosak, for the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna. A second stage takes place at the Salzburger Kunstverein. The exhibition takes the form of a group project where each artist integrates their work into the of the Museum of Applied Arts. The title relates to the 1970s Italian avant-garde music group Dedalus. It is hoped that the group will hear about the project and spontaneously reunite.
2002
Large public commission for the Kirchdorf School near Krems in Austria. One part of the work includes a large clock that is permanently stuck two minutes before the end of school. The other part is a text work that translates Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas into casual street language.
Publishes Literally No Place with Book Works, London. The book centers on a utopian commune and addresses the history and potential of applied or activated utopias. The book is influenced by study of American utopian communities that functioned without communism.
Large exhibition The Wood Way at The Whitechapel Gallery, London, is accompanied by a book. The exhibition and the book focus upon the various abstract discussion platforms and screens that have been produced since the mid-1990s. Café and auditorium redesign are part of the exhibition.
Creates large wall text derived from the book Literally No Place as contribution to the inaugural exhibition Startkapital at K21, Dusseldorf.
Nominated for The Turner Prize at Tate, London. Produces a large discussion platform that fills the entire space. A vitrine holds reference prints of Gillick’s graphic works, including poster designs, public proposals, and graphic works for other artists and exhibitions.
Releases CD soundtrack of Sarah Morris’s film Capital, on the Semishigure label, Kleve.
First exhibition, Light Technique, at Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna.
All Annlee works brought together in No Ghost Just a Shell at the Kunsthalle Zurich; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
2003
Begins work on government civil service building, The Home Office, London. Works for three years with Farrells architecture firm on façade, canopy, windows, and curated projects by other artists.
Works with Maria Lind on Telling Histories at the Kunstverein in Munich. The exhibition is a research structure that allows public access to the historical archives of the Kunstverein. The artist designs reading areas, archive units, seating, and a stage area.
Exhibition as part of the Projects series titled Literally at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Creates the seating system for Utopia Station at the Venice Biennale.
Releases Liam Gillick/Rob Mazurek, for the En/Off record label, Kleve.
2004
Publishes Underground (Fragments of Future Histories), with Les maître des forme contemporains, Brussels, and Les Presses du Réel, Dijon. The book is an updated version of Gabriel Tarde’s book Fragment d’histoire future (1896).
Collaborates with Philippe Parreno on a short animated film series titled Briannnnnn & Ferryyyyy, for the Konsthall, Lund. The films are a classic cat and mouse series where the mouse dies in the first episode.
Exhibition Övningskörning (Driving Practice) at Milwaukee Art Museum.
Participates in Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated), Art from 1951 to the Present at the Guggenheim Museum, New York.
First exhibition at Micheline Szwajcer, in Antwerp, titled Underground (Fragments of Future Histories).
Starts column for Metropolis M magazine in Amsterdam.
2005
Finishes work on The Home Office civil service government building, London.
Exhibition Edgar Schmitz, at the ICA, London, is named after fellow artist and writer Edgar Schmitz. The form of the exhibition is a reading room where it is possible to study the Revolver publishing archive. Schmitz curates a film program as part of the project. A collaborative work by Christopher Wool and Josh Smith is commissioned to create a “sign” for the exhibition.
Exhibition A Short Text on the Possibility of Creating an Economy of Equivalence, is curated by Nicholas Bourriaud at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. MM design agency remix the exhibition poster. The exhibition concerns production rather than consumption and the aesthetics of resistance. The exhibition is connected to the commencement of a book titled Construction of One. It is decided to continue working on the book into the future without ever publishing it.
Releases Los Angeles, CD of the soundtrack to a Sarah Morris film, on the Semishigure label, Kleve.
2006
Briannnnnn & Ferryyyyyy is exhibited at the Kunsthalle Zurich.
Takes part in How to Improve the World, at the Hayward Gallery, London. Produces a series of posters for every year that the UK Arts Council has existed.
Live performance Construcción de Uno at Tate, London as part of the Tate Triennial curated by Beatrix Ruf. The work consists of a Volkswagen Golf Mark I sitting in the middle of the museum. Part of the manuscript Construction of One is left in the car. Three actors enter the car and encounter the text for the first time. The credit sequence is a large projection that is as long as the performance itself.
First exhibition at Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, titled Literally Based on HZ. The exhibition refers to artist Heimo Zobernig.
2007
Factories in the Snow, written by Lilian Haberer, is published by JRP-Ringier. The book is an edited version of the author’s PhD thesis on the artist.
Participates in Memorial to the Iraq War, at the ICA, London.
Places a Yamaha Disklavier piano and snow machine on the side of the stage for Il Tempo del Postino at the first Manchester International Festival. The piano plays in the gaps between the performances by other artists. Titled Factories in the Snow, the work is later given to Philippe Parreno who uses it as a trigger for his own exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in 2013.
Participates in and co-organizes the free school unitednationsplaza in Berlin. Based at the rear of a supermarket near Alexanderplatz, the project is the start of a long relationship with e-flux that includes the publication of various texts in e-flux journal. The artist also creates the signage for the building.
Publishes a selection of critical texts as Proxemics: Selected Writing 1988–2006, with JRP-Ringier in Zurich.
2008
Delivers the Hermes Lecture 2008 in Eindhoven for the Hermes entrepreneurs’ network, Den Bosch, and the Research Group of Visual Art at AKV|St Joost Art Academy, Avans.
Participates in The Sydney Biennale, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Produces a unique book for each person who contacts the artist.
Gives title to and participates in Theanyspacewhatever, at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. The exhibition is a survey of the artists who worked together regularly in the 1990s including Angela Bulloch, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Jorge Pardo.
First stage of a retrospective project titled Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario, at Witte de With, Rotterdam, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen. The exhibition continues at the Kunsthalle Zurich, curated by Beatrix Ruf; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, curated by Dominic Molon; and the Kunstverein Munich, curated by Stefan Kalmár. The exhibition divides the spaces between institutional and artistic zones. The institution can do what they want in their zone. A selection of ephemeral works, posters, and editions are in the center of the exhibition and a PowerPoint projection acts as a survey of works, slowly overwritten by a fragment from the unpublished book Construction of One. In Munich a series of partitions are produced as the set for a play about production set in a bar next to a Volvo factory.
Nominated for the Vincent Award at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Works in collaboration with architect Rodrigo Gomez Villaseñor on the Dynamica Building, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Joins the Graduate Committee of Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies.
2009
During the MCA Chicago installment of Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario, the artist curated a parallel exhibition titled One Hundred and Sixty-Third Floor: Liam Gillick Curates the Collection. Based on research in the museum archives, information about forty years of events and performances are juxtaposed with works from the collection.
Represents Germany at the Venice Biennale with How Are You Going to Behave? A Kitchen Cat Speaks. The work relates to the artist’s interest in Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, who designed the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926. An animatronic cat is placed on top of a large, abstracted kitchen cabinet system. The cat speaks and relates a story about a cat that can speak.
Completes a large public project on the façade of the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver. The work is a repeated stainless steel text installed on the façade of a large tower that reads Lying on Top of a Building, the Clouds Looked No Nearer Than When I Was Lying in the Street.
MIT Press publish Meaning Liam Gillick, a reader on the artist’s work with texts by Peio Aguirre, Julieta Aranda, Johanna Burton, Nikolaus Hirsch, John Kelsey, Maurizio Lazzarato, Maria Lind, Sven Lütticken, Benoît Maire, Chantall Mouffe, Barbara Steiner, and Marcus Verhagen.
Book Works, London, publishes Allbooks, a compendium of the artist’s fictional texts that have been the condensed core of ideas behind the production of many works. Included are McNamara, Erasmus Is Late, Discussion Island/Big Conference Center, and Literally No Place.
2010
Films A Guiding Light with Anton Vidokle, for Performa in New York. The film is shot in a television studio and features Boško Blagojević, Noah Brehmer, Nadja Frank, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Danna Vajda, Anna Colin, and Shama Khanna. Tim Griffin provides the narration. The film is a discussion focusing on new models of thinking and production.
A large structure titled Aix Pavilion is installed at Chateau la Coste in Aix en Provence. The stainless steel structure contains a sequence of colored aluminum sliding screens that can be moved by visitors.
The extensive retrospective exhibition One Long Walk, Two Short Piers takes place at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
The text Why Work? is published as a small, cheap book by Artspace, New Zealand, and subsequently as a luxurious limited edition by Three Star Books, Paris. The text is taken from a conference organized by Simon Critchley and Maria Lind in 2009 featuring papers by Gianni Vattimo and the artist.
Begins involvement with LUMA Arles toward the development of a large-scale art center on the site of the former SNCF rail yards in Arles, France.
2011
Collaboration with Lawrence Weiner for A Syntax of Dependency: Liam Gillick and Lawrence Weiner, at Mukha in Antwerp. Mousse publishes a book to accompany the exhibition. The work comprises a cut linoleum floor that completely covers the main exhibition space. There are no wall texts, and a voice announces the exhibition title as you approach up the stairs.
Participates in Abstract Possible at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. Writes a text titled Abstract for the publication that accompanies the exhibition and takes part in a public discussion on the legacy of applied abstraction.
Exhibits the first version of A Game of War Structure at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. The work is a development of Guy Debord’s version of Le Jeu de la Guerre. Specialist gamers from Dublin are invited to play the game.
A Guiding Light shown as part of Performa 11, New York.
2012
A reanimation of key works from the 1990s is presented at Bard College. Titled From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick, the exhibition is curated by Tom Eccles at the Hessel Museum of Art. Working with students of the curatorial studies program, key works are represented in order to test how they function in a post-internet and self-conscious participatory context. The works include Information Room (1993), The Moral Maze (1995), and Everyday Holiday (1996).
First exhibition at Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, titled Four Propositions Six Structures.
Designs an open cinema setting and informational texts for the presentation of an Adam Curtis film program. Titled The Desperate Edge of Now, the project takes place at e-flux in New York and travels to the Home Workspace Program, Beirut.
With Philippe Parreno and core group members, Tom Eccles, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Beatrix Ruf, along with Maja Hoffmann, conceives and organizes To the Moon via the Beach in the Roman amphitheater in Arles. This first large-scale project for LUMA Arles involves the transformation of a giant sandscape from a beach form to a moon form. As the work of transformation takes place, a number of invited artists work around the arena. Artists involved included Uri Aran, Daniel Buren, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Loretta Fahrenholz, Fischli & Weiss, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, Klara Lidén, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Lawrence Weiner.
Completes new façade for the Astra Factory in Gernika. The building is to become a cultural center in the Basque region.
Designs and installs a new furniture and shelving system for the one-room Coniston Institute Library in Cumbria, England.
First exhibition at Taro Nasu, Tokyo, titled, Agreements, McNamara, and Lead Times.
2013
Delivers the thirty-eighth Bampton Lectures at Columbia University. Titled Creative Disruption in the Age of Soft Revolutions, the lectures focus on the key periods that have been the focus of the artist’s work since the early 1990s. Previous speakers include Jacob Bronowski, Anthony Blunt, Lewis Mumford, and Fred Hoyle.
Exhibition titled November 1–December 21 by Liam Gillick and Louise Lawler at Casey Kaplan, New York.
Produces a suite of posters for Nuit Blanche in Paris. The posters address questions around migration and identity and are pasted up along the canal St. Martin.
Participates in 9 Artists, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, curated by Bart Ryan, which then travels to MIT in Cambridge. Public discussion with Hito Steyerl in Minneapolis and keynote lecture in Cambridge.
Stops teaching at Columbia University.
Takes co-lead role alongside Viv Albertine in Joanna Hogg’s film Exhibition. Attends Locarno and New York film festivals to promote the film.
Installs large outdoor freestanding discussion platform at The Contemporary, Austin.
2014
Works with Philippe Parreno and the rest of the LUMA core group on Solaris Chronicles for LUMA, Arles.
From 199C to 199D takes place at Magasin Grenoble. As with the earlier incarnation at Bard College, the exhibition is realized in collaboration with the students of the curatorial program.
Included in The Decade 1984–1999, a reassessment of art from the 1990s at the Centre Pompidou, Metz.
Produces an exhibition design for Confessions of the Imperfect, 1848–1989–Today at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
2015
Commissioned by the Holland Festival and the Stedelijk Museum to produce a large public project for the Musemplein in Amsterdam. All-Imitate-Act comprises a series of large head-in-the-hole panels running down the length of the plaza.
Begins what becomes an ongoing involvement with the new media department of the National Gallery in Prague. The first step, (a) Moving Image Department, is followed by further iterations over the next two years.
Participates in the Istanbul Biennale, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. The work is a large equation relating to flow installed on the façade of the Istanbul Modern Museum.
Participates in the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen. Contribution is a series of letters sent every day that appear to have been written in Moscow that concern data and misdirection.
Creates exhibition design for Hotel Theory at Redcat, Los Angeles, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi. The exhibition examines the use of theory as an art form.
Commissioned by SNCF to produce a new work to coincide with the Paris Climate Change Conference at Gare du Nord RER station in Paris. The work presents the original equations relating to the science of climate change produced in the 1960s by Syukuro “Suki” Manabe.
Publishes the book From 199A to 199D, a survey and reassessment of works from the 1990s with JRP-Ringier, Zurich, to accompany the earlier exhibitions at Bard and Magasin.
2016
Exhibition What’s What in a Mirror at Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, as part of the commemoration of the Easter Rising in 1916.
Curates Development, the first Okayama Art Summit. Thirty-one artists participate with a large proportion producing new works.
Columbia University Press publishes Industry and Intelligence: Contemporary Art Since 1820, a book that includes transcriptions of the Bampton Lectures and additional texts written over recent years.
Completes Structured Expansion for Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies. The work comprises a research archive and working area.
The exhibition Campaign at Muséo Serralves, Porto, is a one-year-long exhibition in four parts; each section focuses on a central aspect of the artist’s work since the 1990s.
2017
Extended Soundtrack for a Lost Production Line, Ton und Film at Eva Presenhuber in Zurich includes soundtracks by the artist combined with films produced over the previous ten years.
Begins work on Graphic Archive, gathering all printed works from the last thirty years. The final archive is exhibited at Esther Schipper in July.
Co-curates Like a Moth to a Flame with Tom Eccles and Mark Rappolt at Ogr in Turin, bringing together works from major private and museum collection in the city.
Works in close collaboration with New Order on a series of concerts in Manchester. Titled ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif), the project brings together twelve musicians and the group in a responsive, articulated structure including digital mapping that is synchronized with a deconstructed playlist.
Presents The Lights Are No Brighter at the Center at the CAC Vilnius. The exhibition incorporates some aspects developed during the collaboration with New Order.
Collaborates with philosopher John Rajchman on the exhibition and book project Schreibtischuhr at Meyer Kainer in Vienna.
2018
Further concerts with New Order in Turin and Vienna. A full-length documentary is produced about the project for Sky Arts television.
Completes large-scale installation titled Triangular Passage Work for the lobby of Olympic Tower, New York.
Begins construction of a small guest house in Okayama, Japan, in collaboration with Mt. Fuji architects.
2019
Work in the form of an Audioguide is presented as part of the Kunsthaus Zurich exhibition Fly me to the Moon, marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.
Designs the exhibition structure for Bau(Spiel)Haus at the Neues Museum, Nürnberg to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Bauhaus.
Produces a series of large graphic posters to coincide with ART + CLIMATE = CHANGE, 2019 in Melbourne.
Retrospective of the artists films Standing on Top of a Building: Films 2008-2019 accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue takes place at the Madre Museum, Naples.
Collaborates with Gelatin to produce Stinking Dawn, a film shot during an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wien, later presented as a full length feature film.
Completes Folded Extracted Personified, an interactive installation at the Museum of Islamic Art Park, Doha, Qatar.
Mute Record releases, New Order + Liam Gillick, ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) So it goes... a live album that was recorded at the Manchester, Turin and Vienna concerts.
2021
Curates Prima Che Il Gallo Canti, with Tom Eccles and Mark Rappolt at Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guarene.
Produces first stained glass installation, Take! Read! Glass! at Cloud Art Space, Seoul.
Installs three major pubic works for the LUMA Foundation in Arles. Laguna Gloria is a room in the main Gehry building that wraps the entire space. Oriented Discussion Platforms, are a series of outdoor works that respond to the specific climate and function of the place. Luma Arles Signage System is a unique fully functional signage system for the entire space.
First major museum exhibition in Asia, The Work Life Effect at Gwangju Museum of Art, Korea.
2022
Designs the exhibition structure and co-curates Farbe ist Programm at the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn. An exhibition that addresses the use of color in art.
Stinking Dawn, a movie by Gelitin and Liam Gillick is released and screened in Copenhagen, New York and Berlin.
Designs an education room for the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
Publishes artists novel A Max De Vos, in Gent with Borgerhoff & Lamberigts to coincide with exhibition Project Palace: A Centenary at Bozar, Brussels.
Installs A Variability Quantifier on Fogo Island, a fully functional weather station in the form of a functional artwork that relates to vernacular architecture on the island.
2023
The solo exhibition Filtered Time take place at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin. Given the opportunity to work with the entire collection of Near Eastern art, lighting, sound and projections are used to create a fully immersive experience of the collection.
Takes part in the Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art 2023 with Anton Vidokle with a performance at the Vilnius rail yard turntable. Featuring young musicians playing fragments of music that started or ended revolutions.
Produces However Many Times We Ran The Model The Results Were Pretty Much The Same with Hito Steyerl for the village of Roddino in Piedmonte. The work involves painting an entire building in the village and relates to analysis of the local economy, environment and demographics.
Completes Elevated Distribution for Claridges Hotel, London. A massive public work on one side of the building as part of a complete renovation of the building.
Takes part in the 14th Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema, at The Power Station of Art in Shanghai with a room sized installation related to work at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.