Introduction

This exhibition is the production component of the series of exhibitions that comprise Liam Gillick’s mid-career retrospective. It is the first opportunity to see his work in Germany since the controversial announcement that Liam Gillick (b. Aylesbury, UK, 1964), will be the artist at the German Pavilion in next years Venice Biennale. Earlier this year the other venues, Witte de With, Rotterdam and Kunsthalle Zürich have been engaged in rethinking the potential and limits of a retrospective. A process that has been complicated, by Gillick handing half the space back to the curators of those venues. In autumn 2009 this retrospective in four acts will draw to a close at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In comparison the show at the Kunstverein München however, turns the venue into an active place of production rather than reassessment. The exhibition is the process of producing a play – a short scenario – written and directed by Liam Gillick titled Mirrored Image: A Volvo Bar. Working with a group of young actors within a structure, designed by the artist, a basic text will be developed and reworked into a series of performances that will take place during and within the exhibition. Various characters from the last twenty years of the artist’s work will appear and new relationships will be exposed.