Literally No Place
Liam Gillick September 16 to October 28 2000

The phrase "literally no place" can be understood as another way of saying Utopia. This exhibition brings together some elements that are the result of distracted thinking while developing the outline of a new text with the same title as the exhibition.

"Literally No Place", the book, will be an examination of shifting concepts and manifestations of conscience. Attention shifting across time as we track the story of six people who come together a various points during their research into the participants in a former commune. The story evolves in three separate cities, and in each one a series of conferences is about to take place towards a revision of ethics and strategy in relation to the development and growth of those differing urban locations. The six involved pass each other at various points in the narrative, as they develop their presentations and refine their arguments. Yet we are never permitted access to their specific, detailed work, only offered an ever more complex web of relationships and negotiations. Towards the end we shift into three distinct narrative sections, based on three radio plays that are listened to by those involved in the conferences at specific unco-ordinated moments.

There are some additional moments of narrative play. A man is seen standing by a subway entrance. Above his head three layers of highways cross. He is already sick but watches half of the six walk right past him. Later that night, a woman sits alone at the bar. Close by, another man is sleeping while his telephone rings. Three people sit together some distance away while the woman nods forward and draws increasingly small circles with her finger onto the wet wood of the bar. The people working there step down to serve you. Standing lower than the floor area of the rest of the place they are situated at exactly the right height to deal with those sitting low at a low bar. The woman's dress is made of an artificial fibre. She turns and hurls a medium sized metal spoon towards the three sitting across the room. They feel the rush as it flies past them and some clanking against the wooden panelling of the wall but sometimes it is better to act as if something just fell from the sky.

Liam Gillick, September 2000