archive 2009 : 2008 : 2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003 : 2002 : 2001 : 2000 : 1999 : 1998 : 1997 : 1996 : 1995 : 1994 programon the spotjump into cold watercontributions jump into cold water : contributions Liam Gillick Winter School, 1996 Poster Liam Gillick’s Winter School is an early piece of the artist and is characteristic of the hypothetical strategy and the critical direction of his work. It recounts the fictitious story of a winter school which had been established in the run-up to the famous Documenta V, curated by Harald Szeemann in 1971, in order to think about the structure and claim of this big international exhibition. There are no recordings or documents of the conversations. Similar to his later texts and novels, Gillick creates a setting in which an alternative structure is developed and an idea is projected into the future: an idea which will change everything. He describes fictitious agendas, discussions and arguments as well as the reorganisation of a crisis and, eventually, the change of the future by an understanding of what Gillick calls the "middle ground": the pre-representative social area in the background in which ideas are discussed and decisions are made.