Artist Liam Gillick is giving a free talk at Eastside Projects tomorrow, Sunday 20th December at 2pm, with a matinée performance of his two plays at 3–5pm
Liam will be talking about the two plays currently being performed at Eastside Projects: ‘Lapdog of the Bourgeoisie’ 2009, a murder mystery set in Eastside Projects and a restaging of ‘Mirrored Image: A “Volvo” Bar’ 2008 set in the “Volvo Bar” a notional Scandinavian workers bar on August 8, 1993, the day before the Volvo car plant closed. The talk will be followed by a matinee performance of the plays by actors who have been involved in the production so far.
Currently on at Eastside Projects is a solo of exhibition of Two Short Plays by Liam Gillick, ‘one of the most significant artists to emerge from the UK in the last twenty years’. The first play, Lapdog of the Bourgeoisie, is a one-act murder-mystery play based on an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (short extract above):
Staged as a visit to a critical culturemystery exhibition the shifting set of characters includes The Museum Director, The Art Collective, The Curator, Collector A & B and Liam The characters are caught in a reality loop only broken by solving the murder that has taken place in the gallery.
The second piece is Mirrored Image: A “Volvo” bar, which uses Eastside Projects as:
…a stage on which social phenomena of a post-industrial society are played out, presenting a core aspect in Gillick’s work – the negotiation of models of community. The parallel with the closing of car manufacturing in Birmingham over recent years adds an extra reality check to Gillick’s contingent mise en scene.
The plays will be performed at 2pm and 3.30pm Thurs-Sat until 23 Jan, and a Special Resolution on Sun 20 Dec with Liam Gillick giving an artist’s talk at 2pm and matinee performance 3-5pm. The gallery is closed for Christmas 20 Dec-6 Jan.
