Documents Series

An example of theDocuments Seriesby Henry Bond and Liam Gillick.

Title:11 February 1992, Trafalgar Square, London, England.

Evacuation and closure of Whitehall and surrounding area due to discovery of a suspect device.

Documents Seriesis the overall title of a series of eighty-three fine artworks made collaboratively byHenry BondandLiam Gillickbetween 1990 and 1995. It has been suggested that the intention behind the work was to "examine the procedures behind news-gathering."

Praxis

In order to make the work the duo posed as a news reporting team—i.e., a photographer and a journalist—often attending events scheduled in thePress Association'sGazette—a list of potentially newsworthy events in London. Bond worked as if a typical photojournalist, joining the other press photographers present; whilst Gillick operated as the journalist, first collecting the ubiquitouspress kitbefore preparing his audio recording device.

Format

Each work in the group takes the form of a framed photographic print and a corresponding text panel which includes the time, date, and location of the event, together with a brief description and, in some instances, an extract of the audio recording made at each event by Gillick.

Critical reception

The series was first shown commercially in 1991, atKarsten Schubert Limitedand then, in 1992, atMaureen Paley'sInterim Art—two of the galleries that were pioneering the development of theYBAart movement. Writing in 2001, whilst a curator atTate,Emma Dexterstated, "Henry Bond and Liam Gillick posed as journalists at press and media events, creating as a result a series ofphoto/textworks that are a neat elision of two distinct realms of information gathering and sorting: that of conceptual art and that of the news and publicity industry,Documentsexposes the codes and rituals involved in news management, but it has also become, with time, an accidental history of our age. "Examples of the series are held in theArts Council Collectionand have been exhibited atTate Modern,London (Century City, 2001) andHayward Gallery,London (How to Improve the World, 2006). The complete series were showcased at theWalker Art Center(Brilliant! New Art from London) in 1995.