Bathing, 1977
Video (color, sound); 4:25 min.
A woman is lying in a bathtub with her eyes closed. In the background the splashing from a running tap can be heard. The camera pans across the woman’s body to dwell on her face, which just protrudes above the surface of the water. The woman runs her hands through her hair. The movement is frozen and for a few seconds remains arrested on the monitor as a tonally alienated, black-bordered image. Then the camera continues with its observation. The woman begins to wash her hair with shampoo. Again the movement is halted. She continues with her hair washing, puts her head underwater a few times, and finally leans forward to remove the rest of the shampoo from her hair. This sequence is repeatedly interrupted through freezing the moving image at particularly ‘picturesque’ moments. While the protagonist’s natural and relaxed-seeming movements are transformed into extremely light, pastel color sequences, the darker colored, arrested images reflect well-known motifs from art history, familiar to us especially from Impressionist painting.
In Bathing, as in his Mirror Road, Windows and Objects with Destinations, Hill uses the camera and image processing devices to explore the malleability of electronic colors and image density.
Broeker, Holger, ed. Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 20, p. 66.
Solo screening. Anthology Film Archives, New York, New York, May 28, 29, 1977.
Atlanta Independent Film & Video Festival, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, May 12 – 20, 1978.
Fourth Annual Ithaca Video Festival, Ithaca, New York, 1978.
“Beau Fleuve,” organized by Media Study/Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. Travelled to: Center for Media Art, American Center, Paris, France, December 3 – 7, 1979; L’Espace Lyonnais D’Action Culturelle (ELAC), Lyon, France, December 10 – December 14, 1979; Musée Cantini, Marseilles, France, December 17 – December 21, 1979; Media Study/Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, January 14 – 18, 1980.
“New York Video,” Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany, July 7 – August 2, 1981.
Solo exhibition. Center for Media Art, The American Center, Paris, France, December 13 – 15, 1983.
2e Semaine Internationale de Vidéo, Saint-Gervais Genève, Geneva, Switzerland, November 16 – 21, 1987.
Solo screening. Espace lyonnais d’art contemporain (ELAC), Lyon, France, July 26 and September 27, 1988.
Vidéoformes 89: Festival de la Création Vidéo, Clermont-Ferrand, France, April 20 – 29, 1989.
Solo exhibition. “OTHERWORDSANDIMAGES,” Video Galleriet, Huset, Denmark and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, April 20 – May 13, 1990.
“Gary Hill,” (travelling exhibition organized by Riksutställningar, Stockholm, Sweden) Moderna Museet, Spårvagnshallarna, Stockholm, Sweden, February 4 – April 17, 1995; Museet for samtidskunst, Oslo, Norway, April 26 - May 21, 1995; Helsingin Taidehalli, Helsinki, Finland, June 29 - July 30, 1995; Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden, September 3 - October 15, 1995, Jönköpings läns museum, Jönköping, Sweden, October 22 - November 15, 1995; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Göteborg, Sweden, November 15, 1995 - January 14, 1996.
Solo exhibition. Center for Contemporary Images, Saint-Gervais Genève, Geneva, Switzerland, September 9, 10, 1998.
“Gary Hill: Video Works,” NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan, February 16 – March 31, 1999.
Solo exhibition. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 17 – June 4, 2000 (May 24, 2000 screening).
Solo exhibition. Museo Caraffa, Córdoba, Argentina, July 7 – 30, 2000 (July 8, 2000 screening).
“Hill(scape),” Extra Microwave Media Art Festival (organized by Videotage), Hong Kong Space Museum Lecture Hall, Hong Kong, January 14 – 31, 2001 (January 21 screening).
“l’écriture vidéophage – les bandes vidéo de Gary Hill,” La Compagnie, Marseille, France, May 1 – 31, 2001 (May 1 and 3 screenings).
“…confiture demain et confiture hier. Mais jamais confiture aujourd’hui…” Association Nouvelle Vague, Centre Regional d’art Contemporain, Sete, France, May 3 – June 26, 2002 (May 15, 2002 screening).
“Gary Hill: Selected Works 1976 – 2003,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2 – August 24, 2003.
“Videographies – The Early Decades,” EMST (The National Museum of Contemporary Art), Athens, Greece, July 13 – December 31, 2005.
“Against the Grain: 15 Years of Collecting,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, May 15 – September 6, 2009.
“Les Projections du LaM,” LaM – Lille Métropole musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France, October 21, 2010.
“Video Vintage,” ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, September 22, 2012 – February 3, 2013.
“Gary Hill: Momentombs,” Suwon Art Museum, Suwon, Korea, November 26, 2019 — March 6, 2020.
"Gary Hill: A Question of Perception," Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, November 30, 2024 - March 16, 2024
Atlanta Independent Film & Video Festival. Program notes. Atlanta: Image Film/Video Center, 1978, unpaginated.
Fourth Annual Ithaca Video Festival. Program notes. Ithaca, New York: Ithaca Video Festival, 1978, unpaginated.
Jenkins, Bruce and John Minkowsky. Beau Fleuve. Buffalo, New York: Media Study/Buffalo, 1979, p. 5.
“Beau Fleuve: Five Programs of Work by 27 Film and Video Makers from Buffalo.” Media Study/Bufflao (January – May 1980), p. 11.
Oeuvres vidéo de Gary Hill en sa présence. Center for Media Art. Program notes. Paris: American Center, 1983, unpaginated.
Furlong, Lucinda. "A Manner of Speaking: An Interview with Gary Hill." Afterimage 10, 8 (March 1983), p. 10.
2e Semaine Internationale de Vidéo. Geneva: Saint-Gervais Genève, 1987, p. 125.
Vidéoformes '89: Festival de la Création Vidéo. Program notes. Clermont-Ferrand, France: Festival de la Création Vidéo, 1989, p. 12.
Sarrazin, Stephen. Chimaera Monographe No. 10 (Gary Hill). Montbéliard, France: Centre International de Création Vidéo Montbéliard, Belfort, 1992, pp. 20 – 22, 48, 72, 74. (Including excerpts from an interview with Gary Hill)
Mignot, Dorine. Gary Hill. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum; Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 1993, p. 56.
Van Assche, Christine and Corinne Diserens. Gary Hill. Valencia: Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Centre del Carme, 1993, p. 100.
Joachimides, Christos M. and Rosenthal, Norman, eds. American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1913 – 1993. Munich: Prestel -Verlag, 1993, p. 481. (In German: Amerikanische Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert: Malerei und Plastik 1913 – 1993. Berlin: Martin-Gropius-Bau, 1993, p. 481.)
Sorensen, Jens Erik, ed. Strange Hotel International Art. Aarhus: Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 1993, pp. 83, 121.
Gary Hill: Tall Ships, Clover. Stockholm: Riksutställningar, 1995, pp. 48, 57.
Gary Hill: Video Works. Tokyo: NTT InterCommunication Center, 1999, pp. 14 – 16.
Morgan, Robert C., ed. Gary Hill. Baltimore: PAJ Books / The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 64 – 65, 185 – 186, 211, 213 – 214.
Gary Hill en Argentina: textos, ensayos, dialogos. Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural Recoleta, 2000, p. 7.
Gary Hill: Instalaciones. Córdoba: Ediciones Museo Caraffa, 2000, p. 72.
Hill (scape): Gary Hill’s video screening, performance and installation exhibition. Program notes. Hong Kong: Videotage, 2001, p. 8.
Lageira, Jacinto. Des premiers mots aux derniers silences in Gary Hill: Around & About: A Performative View. Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2001, pp. 8, 11.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, pp. 64, 66, 78.
Unfolding Vision: Gary Hill, Selected Works 1976 – 2003. Taipei: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003, pp. 14, 72 – 75.
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. 22 – 23.