Liminal Objects #3 [hands], 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 #3 differs somewhat from the rest of the series in that the objects are relatively similar in that they are “animated” hands of the same person. The hands nonchalantly rub together and at times pass through one another in impossible ways. Perhaps it is something that the viewer might feel rather than see.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 95, p. 198.
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.
“The Hand,” The Power Plant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, June 26 – September 6, 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.)
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. Gary Hill: HanD HearD/liminal objects. Paris: Galerie des Archives; Barrytown, New York: Station Hill Arts, 1996, unpaginated.
Colard, Jean-Max. “Popus: Gary Hill.” Les Inrockuptibles 4 (March 13 – 19, 1996), p. 6.
Carron, Natacha. “Gary Hill. Surfe sur les ondes cérébrales.” Coda 21 (April 1996).
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), p. 4, 12.
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), pp. 74, 75.
Schwendener, Martha. “Gary Hill: Barbara Gladstone.” Flash Art (May / June 1999), p. 113.
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, 25, 198.
Aubes, rêveries au bord de Victor Hugo. Paris: Paris-Musées and Maison de Victor Hugo, 2002, pp. 12, 17, 73 – 74, 93.
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.