PRESENTATION: Liam Gillick-A Variability Quantifier (The Fogo Island Red Weather Station)
Liam Gillick’s work exposes the dysfunctional aspects of a modernist legacy in terms of abstraction and architecture when framed within a globalized, neo-liberal consensus, and extends into structural rethinking of the exhibition as a form. He has produced a number of short films since the late 2000s which address the construction of the creative persona in light of the enduring mutability of the contemporary artist as a cultural figure.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Fogo Islands Arts Archive
Liam Gillick’s “A Variability Quantifier (The Fogo Island Red Weather Station)” (2022) is an artwork intended to function as an operational weather station for Fogo Island and part of the World Weather Network (WWN), a constellation of “weather stations” located across the world in oceans, deserts, mountains, farmland, rainforests, observatories, lighthouses and cities. WWN is comprised of artists and writers from twenty-eight arts organizations from across the world. With advice from partners in the local community, Liam Gillick developed “A Variability Quantifier (The Fogo Island Red Weather Station)” as a 2/3 scale model of a typical fishing stage structure, commonly found on Fogo Island. The structure is a framework for scientists and local community members to add meteorological instruments that are helpful in measuring and tracking local weather. It helps monitor changes connected to an increasing experience of the climate crisis. The interdisciplinary nature of this project takes this discussion out of an often-siloed sphere into new networks of visibility. The structure is maintained as a site for measurement and experimentation. The base-level operation is a remote autonomous weather station gathering local climate data and sharing it online. The site is also used as a lab for the introduction of new monitoring and measuring equipment and specific targeted experimentation. As the project develops and local needs emerge, additional information will be garnered. The structure is RAL 3020 red, a color Gillick often uses to indicate the tension between a functional framework and an artwork, integrated yet separate from its surroundings. Gillick’s project for Fogo Island develops his interest in the origins of understanding climate science that has been present in several of his works. In recent years he has made specific reference to the work of the eminent Japanese-American climatologist Syukuro Manabe. Manabe, along with his colleagues, developed refined mathematical tools to model the atmosphere in the mid-1960s. Data produced by the weather station will be made available to the communities living on Fogo Island, as well as to artistic and scientific communities internationally, serving as source material for creative interpretations and investigations into this weatherbound part of the world. Reports made with this data will be published via World Weather Network over the year. This work is being acquired by the National Gallery of Canada as part of its National Outreach initiative generously supported by Michael Nesbitt, in which artworks from the collection are sited and maintained at localities across the country. The work will be displayed on the island through October 2026, with stewards throughout this period generously supported by Steven & Lynda Latner.
Photo: Liam Gillick, A Variability Quantifier (The Fogo Island Red Weather Station), 2022, © Liam Gillick, Courtesy of National Gallery of Canada, Fogo Islands Arts and the artist
Info: Curators: Claire Shea and Nicolaus Schafhausen in collaboration with Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Fogo Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador, Duration: 6/10/2022-1/10/2026, Days & Hours: Daily 00:00-24:00, www.fogoislandarts.ca/
Visit the online data portal here.
