Liam Gillick: What’s What in a Mirror

Thursday 28 April – Sunday 25 September 2016
Liam Gillick: Crossmodal Congruency Effects, 2016, birch plywood, two pack lacquer – RAL 2004, mirror, desk: 200 x 102.5 x 30 cm / 78.7 x 40.4 x 11.8 in, stool: 50 x 40 x 40 cm / 19.7 x 15.7 x 15.7 in | Liam Gillick: What’s What in a Mirror | Thursday 28 April – Sunday 25 September 2016 | Hugh Lane Gallery

What’s what in a Mirror? Precisely how does an institution like a museum locate itself in relation to history? Where is the visitor located in the celebration of historical events? Combining the pressures of commemoration and the contingencies of the contemporary, internationally acclaimed artist Liam Gillick invites the visitor to his exhibition at The Hugh Lane into a space of self-examination and reflection on the function of a museum.

Gillick changes the traditional display format of an exhibition and shows work at various locations within the Gallery. The artist provides audiences with a moment’s reverie for the production of self-reflection and appraisal of the now. He asks what are the apparatuses bringing the remnants of the past into the present and bringing things of the present into the future. How has Irish identity stretched since the vision of Mise Éire of 1916? Who is contemporary Ireland commemorating the Rising?

A series of desks and stools constructed from lacquered wood, each furnished with a mirror, are fixed to walls within The Hugh Lane Gallery. The structures rely on the architecture and context of the museum to function. Visitors are encouraged to sit at the desks and work, read, check their phone or just look in the mirror – their backs turned to the art – either observing themselves, the art collection or fellow visitors behind them. The desks are offered as sites of self-reflection and aesthetic absorption for our visitors in this centenary year. Appropriating the aesthetic context of 1916, they carry traces of the early modernism in their form, reminiscent of European avant-garde movements such as Russian constructivism, Bauhaus, and De Stijl.

Accompanying the desks is a short book consisting of texts compiled by Gillick that contrast scientific papers on self-image and a traditional Japanese tale of vanity and hubris.

Liam Gillick: What’s What in a Mirror

Events Programme

Artist Talk: Liam Gillick

5.30pm, Thursday 28 April

Liam Gillick will deliver a public talk on his work and this exhibition What’s What in a Mirror in the Hugh Lane Sculpture Hall on the 28 April at 5.30 pm

Image: Liam Gillick: Crossmodal Congruency Effects, 2016, birch plywood, two pack lacquer – RAL 2004, mirror, desk: 200 x 102.5 x 30 cm / 78.7 x 40.4 x 11.8 in, stool: 50 x 40 x 40 cm / 19.7 x 15.7 x 15.7 in
Thursday 28 April – Sunday 25 September 2016
Hugh Lane Gallery
Parnell Square North
Dublin 1
Telephone: + 353 1 222 5550
info.hughlane@dublincity.ie
www.hughlane.ie
Opening hours / start times:
Tuesday 10.00 - 18:00
Wednesday 10.00 - 18:00
Thursday 10.00 - 18:00
Friday 10.00 - 17:00
Saturday 10.00 - 17:00
Sunday 11.00 - 17:00
Admission / price: Free

 
Associated sites
Design: iCulture • Privacy and cookies
day before opening reception
day of opening reception
day before open to public
day open to public
day before closing
day of closing

(e-mail addresses are not retained after the reminder is sent)