Liminal Objects #6 [fan and pants], 1998
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 #6 is oriented vertically (the monitor is rotated ninety degrees). It consists of a pair of pants – looking as if an invisible person were wearing them – rotating very slowly while an oriental fan, unseen at first, opens, penetrating through the pants from the inside out and then closing again, becoming hidden. This happens every so often; the fan opening and penetrating the pants in many different ways.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 110, p. 220.
An example of this work was exhibited for the first time in a solo exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Images, Saint-Gervais, Genève, 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.
Solo exhibition. Galleria Carla Sozzani, curated by Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan, Italy, November 18 – December 12, 1999.
“Media Connection,” Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy, June 28 – September 15, 2001; Palazzo della Triennale, Milan, Italy, October 12 – November 24, 2001.
Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, May 4 – June 29, 2002.
“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.
“Art by MacArthur Fellows,” Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 7 – July 31, 2004.
James Harris Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair, Century Link Field, Seattle, Washington, July 29 — August 2, 2015.
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.
Romano, Gianni. Media Connection. Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 2001, p. 17.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, pp. 220.
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.