The photographic material of the "Construction of One" series refers to the last publicity campaign carried out by former German Democratic Republic, which saw itself as a “state of workers and farmers”. Using imagery based on image campaigns for political issues, Liam Gillick addresses the relationship between individual and community against the societal background of a social consciousness in the process of dissolution. With his intervention in the public space, Gillick documents how artificially created imagery of members of society - in this case it is obviously the rapidly vanishing working class – gradually assumes omnipotence and, as media reality, seems to be replacing reality. Liam Gillick comments on this contemporary trend as follows: “We must seriously reflect on this group of people – workers from production plants - that adopted new patterns of behaviour before it collapsed and was absorbed by a much more patently exploitative structure.”

Text extract: Christina Werner, Roland Schöny, in: Public Art Vienna. Departures - Works - Interventions. 2004 - 2007.