A Kitchen Cat Speaks (Installation in the German Pavilion) 2009

Liam Gillick’s installation, *A Kitchen Cat Speaks*, is an exercise in geometry, and a dialogue in space and form, light and shadow. Look at the way these modular structures occupy the German Pavilion. The pale wood has a rawness to it, almost like unfinished carpentry, but its effect is far from unrefined. These forms create a dance in the room. I can imagine Gillick being sympathetic to the architecture and the way the light falls in this space, and then responding to it with an almost mathematical precision. There is a playful and almost random organization to the structures, and in their placement they change the way we move through the space. It’s as if Gillick has taken the language of Minimalism and given it a narrative twist. The cat—almost an afterthought, really—adds a layer of humor, suggesting a domesticity and a point of view within this formal arrangement. There is a real conversation between this piece and the history of sculpture, architecture, and the very act of inhabiting a space.