Liminal Objects #2 [house and brain], 1996
Single-channel video installation, silent
Modified 14-inch black-and-white monitor (cathode ray tube removed from chassis), metal stand, one laserdisc player, and one laserdisc (black-and-white, silent)
Dimensions of stand: 36 x 16 x 16 inches (91 x 40 x 40 cm.); monitor horizontal
Edition of two and one artist’s proof
Liminal Objects is an ongoing series of black-and-white works utilizing simple computer animation. The images are displayed on a 14-inch monitor that has been removed from its housing and placed either horizontally or vertically on a metal platform three feet in height. Each work in the series involves two objects that, in a sense, violate each other’s borders in unpredictable ways. Typically, one of the objects sits in stillness while the other moves in, around and through it in a repetitive interaction and circular logic that suggest different readings of these veritable micro scenes. In these works, Hill has deprived the objects of the ability to produce shadows and from having color or texture; instead they remain rigorously textual and playfully idiomatic.
Liminal Objects #2 deals with a brain and a house. The house is rendered with a simple rectangular solid and peaked roof. The seventeen lines of the house object are used as axial centers of rotation. The house rotates around each axis passing through the original position each time and never pausing. With each rotation the brain object, at first hidden, is revealed and then concealed within the house.Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 94, p. 197.
An example of this work was exhibited for the first time in a solo exhibition at Galerie des Archives, Paris, France, February 24 – April 13, 1996.
Solo exhibition. Center for Contemporary Images, Saint-Gervais, Genève, Geneva, Switzerland, September 5 – October 11, 1998.
Solo exhibition. Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, New York, December 5, 1998 – January 23, 1999.
Donald Young Gallery at Art Chicago 1999, Chicago, Illinois, May 6 – 10, 1999.
“Romancing the Brain,” Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 18 – November 21, 1999.
“Dreams 1900 – 2000: Science, Art and the Unconscious Mind,” (travelling exhibition organized by Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New York), Equitable Art Gallery, New York, New York, November 4, 1999 – February 26, 2000; Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna, Austria, March 22 – June 25, 2000; Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New York, September 8 – October 23, 2000.
Solo exhibition. Galleria Carla Sozzani, curated by Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan, Italy, November 18 – December 12, 1999.
“Gary Hill: Selected Works.” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, November 10, 2001 – March 10, 2002. (Note: This work was not included in the travelling venue at Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal, October 10, 2002 – January 12, 2003.)
“Aubes, rêveries au bord de Victor Hugo,” Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris, France; October 10, 2002 – January 19, 2003. Note: This work was exceptionally exhibited on a single wall-recessed monitor without the custom-made stand for this exhibition.
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. Gary Hill: HanD HearD/liminal objects. Paris: Galerie des Archives; Barrytown, New York: Station Hill Arts, 1996, unpaginated. (Incorrectly identified in the catalogue as Liminal Objects #4)
Colard, Jean-Max. “Popus: Gary Hill.” Les Inrockuptibles 4 (March 13 – 19, 1996), p. 6.
Decter, Joshua. “Gary Hill: Galerie des Archives, Paris.” Artforum 35, 3 (November 1996), p. 108.
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. Viewer. Gary Hill’s Projective Installations 3. Barrytown, New York: Station Hill Arts, 1997, p. 56.
Stals, José Lebrero. Gary Hill: HanD HearD – Withershins – Midnight Crossing. Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 1998, pp. 16 – 25.
“Liminal Performance: Gary Hill in Conversation with George Quasha and Charles Stein,” PAJ (Performing Arts Journal) No. 58, Vol. XX, No. 1 (January 1998), pp. 4, 12.
Ramljak, Suzanne. Romancing the Brain. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, 1999, unpaginated.
Doran, Anne. “Seeing is Believing.” Time Out, New York 173 (January 14 – 21, 1999), p. 49.
Goodman, Jonathan. “Gary Hill.” Contemporary Visual Arts 22 (1999), p. 74, 75.
Schwendener, Martha. “Gary Hill: Barbara Gladstone.” Flash Art (May / June 1999), p. 113.
Gamwell, Lynn, ed. Dreams 1900 – 2000: Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press; Binghamton, New York: Binghamton University Art Museum, State University of New York, 2000, p. 112. (Incorrectly identified in the catalogue as Liminal Objects #4)
Marclay, Christian and Gary Hill. “Christian Marclay / Gary Hill: Conversation,” Annandale (Bard College), Vol. 139, No. 1 (Spring 2000), p. 2.
Morgan, Robert C., ed. Gary Hill. Baltimore: PAJ Books / The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 122 – 123, 129 – 132, 246 – 247, 254.
Gary Hill en Argentina: textos, ensayos, dialogos. Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural Recoleta, 2000, pp. 30, 33.
Gary Hill: Instalaciones. Córdoba: Ediciones Museo Caraffa, 2000, pp. 36 – 37, 42.
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. La performance elle-même in Gary Hill: Around & About: A Performative View. Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2001, pp. 23 – 24, 46 – 47, 61.
Rowlands, Penelope. “Gary Hill’s Hall of Mirrors.” ARTnews 100, 5 (May 2001), pp. 179.
Pytlinski, Deanne. “Liminality and Ritual in the Art of Gary Hill.” Chicago Art Journal 11 (Spring 2001), pp. 64 - 65.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, pp. 24, 26, 27, 197.
Zutter, Jörg, ed. Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art. Sydney: National Gallery of Australia, 2002, pp. 24, 25, 26 – 27. (Includes George Quasha’s essay: “Gary Hill’s Art of the Threshold.”)
Gary Hill: Resounding Arches / Archi Risonanti. (Catalogue and DVD.) Rome: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, and Milan: Mondadori Electa S.p.A., 2005, pp. 21.
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. An Art of Limina: Gary Hill’s Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2009, pp. 27, 39, 50 – 51, 90, 114, 115, 208, 209 – 233, 259, 281, 329, 331, 336, 337, 341, 386, 387, 462, 470, 569, 570, 575, 583, 618, 639.