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9/10/2009

Liam Gillik and Jeremy Deller

Museum of Contemporary Art MCA, Chicago

JEREMY DELLER
It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq

October 10 - November 15, 2009

It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, is a new commission by British artist Jeremy Deller as part of The Three M Project. In an effort to encourage the public to discuss the present circumstances in Iraq, a revolving cast of participants including veterans, journalists, scholars, and Iraqi nationals who have expertise in a particular aspect of the region and/or first-hand experience of Iraq have been invited to take up residence in the museum gallery space with the express purpose of encouraging discussion with visitors.

Objects meant to stimulate discussion share the gallery with the resident guest experts. The first and most significant artifact that is on display is the remnant of a car that was destroyed in by an explosion on Al-Mutanabbi, a street in Baghdad, in 2007. This tragedy killed over thirty people, and has taken on added significance because the street, named after a well-known Iraqi poet, was the site of numerous book markets and cafés, and was considered the nexus of Baghdadi cultural and intellectual life. Evidence of the violence continuing to take place in Iraq, the car is meant to ground conversation in the facts, figures, and eyewitness descriptions that have been so lacking in most information about the Iraq War made available to the public.

The second is a handmade banner by artist Ed Hall, who has collaborated with Deller in the past and is known for his work for trade unions and other interest groups. The last is a wall graphic juxtaposing two maps -- one of Iraq and one of the United States. This visual representation serves as a reminder of the disconnect between two countries that are intimately involved politically and economically, though geographically distanced. However urgently the project encourages discussion about a painful, ongoing situation, this endeavor is nonpartisan, and is unscripted and free form, and as formal or informal as each guest expert desires.

This exhibition is organized by the New Museum. The MCA presentation is organized by MCA Curator Dominic Molon. It Is What Is: Conversations About Iraq is part of The Three M Project, a series organized by the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, to commission, organize and co-present new works of art.

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LIAM GILLICK
"Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario"

October 10, 2009 - January 10, 2010

Liam Gillick emerged in the early 1990s as part of a re-energized British art scene, producing a sophisticated body of work ranging from his signature "platform" sculptures -- architectural structures made of aluminum and colored Plexiglas that facilitate or complicate social interaction -- to wall paintings, text sculptures, and published texts that reflect on the increasing gap between utopian idealism and the actualities of the world.
His work joins that of generational peers such as Rirkrit Tiravanija and Philippe Parreno in defining what critic Nicholas Bourriaud described as "relational aesthetics," an approach that emphasizes the shifting social role and function of art at the turn of the millennium. Gillick's work has had a profound impact on a contemporary understanding of how art and architecture influence, and are themselves influenced by, interpersonal communication and interactions in the public sphere.

This exhibition, presented in association with the Witte de With in Rotterdam, Kunsthalle Zurich, and the Kunstverein in Munich, is to be the most significant and comprehensive exhibition of Gillick's work in an American museum to date, representing work in various media and formats from the entirety of his career. The MCA is the only American venue for the exhibition and features work drawn primarily from collections in North America.

The exhibition has a publication that reflects the unique nature of this survey of Gillick's work. This exhibition is curated by MCA Curator Dominic Molon.

Image: © Liam Gillick
Three perspectives and a short scenario, 2008
Courtesy of the artist

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