Liminal Objects #5 [tree and chandelier], 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 vertical
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 #5 was the first in the series to be vertically oriented (the monitor is rotated ninety degrees). A leafy tree, young in stature, is centered on the screen. A simple chandelier suspended from above (the suspension line fades before the top edge of the screen) swings with perfect ease back and forth and around slicing through the tree and its leaves in subtly different ways each time.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 96, p. 199.
An example of this work was first exhibited by the Donald Young Gallery at Art 28’97, Basel, Switzerland, June 11 – 18, 1997.
Solo exhibition. Donald Young Gallery, Seattle, Washington, May 16 – August 15, 1998.
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.
“2000 1/2: Going Forward Looking Back,” Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, June 8 – July 16, 2000.
“Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art,” National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, December 14, 2002 – March 9, 2003.
“Holbein to Tillmans, Prominent Guests from the Kunstmuseum Basel,” Schaulager / Laurenz Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, April 4 – October 4, 2009.
“New Contemporary Galleries – John Kaldor Family Collection,” Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, May 21, 2011 – May 2, 2012.
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.
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.
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. 199.
Zutter, Jörg, ed. Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art. Sydney: National Gallery of Australia, 2002, pp. 12, 24, 25, 26 – 27, 32 (photo). (Includes George Quasha’s essay: “Gary Hill’s Art of the Threshold.”) Note: Jörg Zutter’s essay “Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art” reprinted in: artonview No. 32 (Summer 2002 – 2003), pp. 6 – 11.
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.