Introduction

From June 12 to August 31, Esther Schipper will be showing new works by Liam Gillick.

The exhibition combines three key components of the artist's work: The beginning of a new research process; the re-presentation of an event and new physical structure. A large paper banner lists the historical events of the European revolutionary year of 1848. It is the announcement of the beginning of a new stage of the artistʼ s research. An introductory film titled 1848!!! is  the result of a working collaboration between Liam Gillick, Clementine Coupau and Uri Aran. 

1848!!! was filmed at a bar in New York in April 2010 at the invitation of curator Ajay Kurian. During the filming process Gillick and Coupau discussed the key events of 1848 for Gillick's film while Aran created a second film of this exchange. In Gillick's film—set to a score that is a complete restructuring of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians—we see Coupau reciting the events to Gillick—while in Aran's film we finally hear some of this exchange.

Alongside 1848!!! is a new set of works titled Bar “Volvo". A series of inkjet prints carry reworked medieval woodcuts and fragments of dialogue. The German texts are drawn from the first act of the artists play A “Volvo” Bar. Liam Gillick originally developed this work in eight acts for the Munich Kunstverein, the third venue of his retrospective exhibition Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario. Most recently, the play was performed in the context of Gillick's monographic exhibition in Bonn, entitled Ein langer Spaziergang…Zwei kurze Stege (One Long Walk…Two Short Piers).

Anchoring the exhibition is a new aluminium and Plexiglas structure that continues the artist's interest in the legacy of applied modernism.

A small publication will accompany the exhibition.