Meaning Liam Gillick

Liam Gillick emerged as part of the generation of "Young British Artists" who energized the British art scene in the 1980s and 1990s. He is now one of the most influential (and perplexing) artists in all of contemporary art. Gillick's discursive mode of art practice-often associated with "relational aesthetics"-complicates object production, embraces the exhibition as medium, and explores the social role and function of art. His body of work includes variations on "discussion platforms" (architectural structures that question or facilitate social interaction), text sculptures, and published texts that reflect on the increasing gap between utopian idealism and the real world. Artist, writer, curator, and provocateur, Gillick explores how an artistic practice can be conducted and represented, while at the same time questioning curatorial practice and the conventions of applied design. This reader coincides with a year-long, multi-venue, mid-career retrospective that serves both as a continuous investigation into Gillick's practice and an in-depth study of his work to date. The book offers a range of critical perspectives on Gillick's work. Among them: political scientist Chantall Mouffe develops her notion of radical democracy and antagonism; sociologist Maurizio Lazzarato (whose theorization of immaterial labor influenced Gillick) comments on the current economic crisis; philosopher and artist Benoit Maire links Gillick to continental philosophy; and Johanna Burton questions Gillick's practice in the context of feminist critique. Contributors: Peio Aguirre, Johanna Burton, Nikolaus Hirsch, John Kelsey, Maurizio Lazzarato, Maria Lind, Sven Lutticken, Benoit Maire, Chantall Mouffe, Barbara Steiner, Marcus Verhagen Distributed for Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam), Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunstverein Munchen, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. EXHIBITION Liam Gillick: Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago October 10, 2009Janauary 10, 2010

Monika Szewczyk is a writer, editor, and curator based in Berlin and Rotterdam. She is Head of Publications at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, and a contributing editor of A Prior magazine.

Nicolaus Schafhausen is a curator at the Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in Munich.

Monika Szewczyk is a writer, editor, and curator based in Berlin and Rotterdam. She is Head of Publications at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, and a contributing editor of A Prior magazine.

Maurizio Lazzarato is a sociologist and philosopher in Paris. He is the author of Governing by Debt and Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity, both published by Semiotext(e).

Sven Lütticken, an art historian and critic, teaches at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He is the author of Cultural Revolution: Aesthetic Practice after Autonomy (Sternberg Press) and other books.

Johanna Burton is Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum in New York and the series editor for the Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture.

Artist, critic, and gallerist John Kelsey cofounded the artists' collective The Bernadette Corporation, author of the novel Reena Spaulings (Semiotext(e)).

Nicolaus Schafhausen is a curator at the Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in Munich.