Skip to content

Sunday 8 October to Saturday 23 December

Liam Gillick
renovation filter: recent past and near future

One of the more influential figures in the landscape of contemporary British art, Liam Gillick is engaged in a range of activities that fall between art, design, architecture and politics. renovation filter: recent past and near future is Gillick’s first solo exhibition in an English institution. It offers audiences the opportunity to explore the subtle logic and rigour of Gillick’s conceptual practice, which has had a significant impact on art in France, Germany and the United States.

‘I am interested in art as provisional constructions that project a space where ideas can be reassessed’, Gillick has said. His work invites us to consider a number of slippery issues, including the processes of social, economic and political activity (such as strategy, negotiation, compromise and revision). Often focusing on the built world, his work addresses function and potential to function, also decision-taking and history-making. Such issues are particularly pertinent in the context of the recent changes in the centre and harbourside areas of Bristol and at a time when Arnolfini is planning to redevelop its building.

This exhibition presents work by Gillick from the last ten years, much of it shown for the first time in the UK. The artist will also make new work especially for Arnolfini, ‘designed with the place in mind’. The exhibition will bring together diagrams, wall paintings, structures and platforms, with some audio, video and film elements. Extending Gillick’s project-based practice, it will also include pieces that are less formally defined, consistent with the open-ended content of his work.

An Arnolfini publication will accompany the exhibition. This will supplement the monograph published earlier this year by Oktagon, produced by Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster and Frankfurter Kunstverein in association with Arnolfini.

Supported by The Henry Moore Foundation