GARY HILL

LOOP THROUGH

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20.09.24

Divided into three phases, Gary Hill‘s exhibition continued on September at Art & Design District Palma. Loop Through began on 6 June with an inaugural talk in which the artist shared with visitors the process behind some of his works. The exhibition continued on the 21st of June with an installation and a live performance, and on the 20th of September two more installations were added to the circuit.

Gary Hill’s career spanning more than 50 years has been characterized by a strong commitment to pushing the boundaries of contemporary art. His multimedia installations, performances and video works incorporate a wide range of materials and technologies, along with diverse linguistic concerns. From his early experiments with video and sound to his complex intermedia installations, Hill has consistently challenged conventional notions of perception, engaging audiences with artworks that operate on multiple levels.

The artist tagged the exhibition Loop Through*, in reference to a singular work and also as a suggestion of a circuit to experience the selected works. The installations range from silent projections of “being” and confrontations with physicality, to ambiguities between inside and outside. The works have been strategically placed to reflect all the industrial spaces that constitute the heart of the Art & Design District Palma, with a total of six industrial spaces and eight installations. Each of the pieces on display in Loop Through is a testament to Hill’s boundless ingenuity and vision, and collectively, they form a narrative that invites viewers to reflect on a wide range of contemporary themes and concepts.

Art & Design District invited viewers to visit Loop Through on September 20th, where the exhibition opened to the public with a circuit between three spaces:

Space 26Up Against Down (2008). The installation consists of a series of projected images of various parts of the artist’s body forcibly pressing or pushing against a see-mingly infinite pure black space. Very slight reflections of the body parts are visible, but the depth and composition of the space remain ambiguous. As the body presses against the indefinable surface, multiple low frequency sine waves along with their sub-harmonics are heard, and the changing tension and force of the body’s pressure modulates the waves of sound resembling a kind of shadow of primal drumming

Space 31Pacifier (2014). In this piece, a blown glass bomb reminiscent of the infamous “Fat Man” was dropped from a height of approximately 30 feet and recorded with a high-speed camera. The bomb becomes a multi- faceted mediation on anticipation oscillating between inconceivable devestation and the vulnerability of the now manifested glass form. In effect we finally see a kind of deconstruction from the ultimate symbol of power to a slow spectacle of shattering glass. A descending Shepard’s tone accompanies the falling object.

Space 37Isolation Tank (2010-11). A single channel HD video projection and is entirely computer generated (the sound has been generated with an analog audio synthesizer). At first we see a surfboard from afar seemingly drifting in the middle of the ocean. The camera (unseen helicopter) slowly approaches the object until it fills a good portion of the screen.

*Loop Through is a technical term that usually refers to two video connections on the back of monitors that are linked together. The signal goes in one connection and out the other.