Liminal Objects #8 [table, chair and curtains], 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 #8 consists of a table and two-chair set. Now and then a double split curtain bellows in and merges with the furniture. This particular work has an extra layer of “liminality” by the fact that the curtain is slightly transparent. Additionally there is a subtle hint of a light source hitting the surface of the curtain.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 112, p. 222.
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.
“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.)
“Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art,” National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, December 14, 2002 – March 9, 2003.
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. 178, 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, 222.
Zutter, Jörg, ed. Gary Hill / Bruce Nauman: International New Media Art. Sydney: National Gallery of Australia, 2002, pp. 12, 24, 25, 26 – 27, 33 (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.