The cover for this issue of Artkrush is a detail of Consciens Lobby, a 12-foot cube of vinyl text and powder-coated aluminum created by British artist Liam Gillick in 2001. Like much of Gillick's work, the piece merges intellectual, architectural, and sculptural considerations. Repeating the abbreviated Thomas More quote "wittes learning and studie," Consciens hangs in the lobby of Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications corporation, and suggests the utopian ideals of corporate architecture. The installation was conceived alongside the artist's book Literally No Place, published in 2002.

Born in 1964 in Aylesbury, England, Gillick received his BA from London's Goldsmiths College in 1987. He has enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In 2002, Gillick was shortlisted for the Tate Britain's Turner Prize. As much a theorist as an artist, he has published several books and has been a lecturer at Columbia University's School of the Arts since 1997.

Gillick deconstructs idealistic architecture to create abstract spaces. For the Turner Prize exhibition, he produced the installation Coats of Asbestos Spangled with Mica — a series of acrylic, primary-colored panels mounted on the ceiling in an aluminum grid. The resulting canopy evoked both a corporate office and a colorful De Stijl painting. For Whitechapel's 2002 Wood Way installation, he created a labyrinth of pine partitions spliced with Plexiglas panels in acidic pinks, greens, and oranges. With materials and color schemes ranging from severe to sensual, Gillick uncovers the drama and ideology latent in ordinary environments. (LM)