Annlee You Proposes 2001

Liam Gillick made ‘Annlee You Proposes’ using modular construction, in no particular year – art doesn’t always need to be about dates, right? These colourful, boxy forms feel so process-oriented, like a game of Tetris in real life, where the rules are to keep things open-ended. The surfaces! They're flat and clean, industrial almost, with a palette that screams primary school chic. Red, blue, yellow, plus this muddy brown. It’s like Gillick’s playing with our sense of space, turning the gallery into a kind of playground, or stage set. Take that squat tower of boxes, all stacked up. There's no attempt to hide how it's made, no fancy finish. It is what it is. The piece reminds me a little of Sol LeWitt’s structures, but with a knowing wink. Gillick is interested in how we live with design, and how design lives with us, but he’s also exploring the possibilities of art as something unfinished, always proposing, never quite resolving.