Special show Art Cologne 2007

The latest productions of Gary Hill are pioneering in terms of technology and content with an in-depth analysis of the values and conditions of art production and his own role in contemporary art distribution.

The two installations "Frustrum" and "Guilt" created in co-operation with the Fondation Cartier are programmed challenges to the production and presentation conditions of arts and represent a performative experiment which questions the conditions for the creation of art and its reception.

For the "Frustrum" installation the artist had a 12.5 kg gold bar made and placed this in the middle of a 63 m² large basin filled with 2,000 litres of pure mineral oil. A video production is reflected on the black surface of the oil. The coining of the gold bar "FOR EVERYTHING WHICH IS VISIBLE IS A COPY OF THAT WHICH IS HIDDEN" refers to the ambiguity of the used objects and images. The striking "values" shown by Frustrum are not merely symbolic, but also real – with all the difficult implications they have for the production and exhibition of the work.

Hill uses his new productions and re-installations to ostensibly comment on political power systems while at the same time questioning the process of art production itself and the current development of art as capital and use as a status symbol of power without regard to the aesthetic.

The fact that the gold bar was actually stolen from the Fondation Cartier in Paris is a point of peculiar irony. Two days before the planned closing of the exhibition masked robbers forced their way into the Cartier foundation and removed the bar from the safe where it had been placed overnight. The value of the gold is estimated to be 200,000 euros. Up to now there has been no trace of the robbers of the gold bar.

In the meantime the gold bar has been replaced and the imai foundation will show the spectacular installation "Frustrum" as a preview to the exclusive single Gary Hill exhibition on the subject of values and changing values in the autumn of 2007. Starting 15 September imai at the NRW Forum in Duesseldorf will exhibit six installations, of which four are new productions. The exhibition program will be expanded by a selection of single-channel video works of the artist which are part of the imai media art collection.

Frustrum was co-produced by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris and by imai , Düsseldorf, and presented for the first time during the exhibition organized at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain from October 27, 2006 to February 2, 2007.