Liam Gillick: Some significant equations, 2019

Liam Gillick’s work Some significant equations is inspired by two important papers written in the 1960s by Japanese-born American meteorologist and climatologist Syukuro Manabe, who developed a mathematical model to simulate climate change with the intention of both understanding and predicting it.

Building upon an earlier work for the Gare du Nord in Paris, which was timed to coincide with COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015, Gillick’s project for Melbourne comprises a series of large monochromatic panels that bear some of the ground-breaking equations Manabe developed to help us better understand our planet.

One of these panels is reproduced as an enormous billboard on the corner of Grattan and Swanston Streets and others adorn a hoarding on Masson Road and Swanston Street at the front of the Potter.

As Liam Gillick has stated: “Climate change has a significant basis that is beyond question … the work is a tribute to his [Manabe’s] hard work and the aesthetic elegance of his equations.”