ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I introduce examples of Gillick’s work to claim that his practice epitomises a mode of contemporary art where it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between artist, designer, entrepreneur and celebrity. All operate as cultural practitioners exploiting those systems and platforms that are at hand.
However, even though his work gives the superficial appearance of being operational, his use of systems be that either stylistically or distributively is dysfunctional incomplete and imperfect. Hence, Gillick’s art is, I argue, fundamentally disappointing by which I mean it doesn’t require either aesthetic or conceptual contemplation. It is both aesthetically unsatisfactory and theoretically opaque. There is always something missing, incomplete or not fully resolved. Through this general attitude of incompleteness, Gillick’s work gestures towards its reliance upon systems of distribution in late capitalism in order to be presented as meaningful. But this meaning is never fully realised. And in doing so, his objects mimic the general conditions of subjectivity and its constitution via various systems of communication and control in the Age of Dispersion.
