Ryan Gander. Lost in my own recursive narrative

Ryan Gander’s works take their origin from a research process, a development that always appears fragmented, unfolding like a series of smoke screens, that lead the viewer into unexpected detours. One of the characteristics of his practice is to create artworks that take every possible form, from sculpture, photography and painting to installation, sound and film, slideshows, objects and books, but also lectures and other entirely new forms—like the invention of a fictional word that he tries to pass into our everyday language. Ryan Gander likes to surprise and unsettle his audience.

While his works remain firmly connected to a conceptual logic, they provide snippets of lived experience, referring to various fields of knowledge, clichés, art history, the art world, and, most recently, to the modes of appearance and mediation of art itself (the places of art, exhibitions and their corollaries, but also their reception in the press). The experience of art—from frustration to inaccessibility—and the impossibility of its transcription was the core of Gander's project «Locked Room Scenario» for ArtAngel in London. The spectator was pushed into the role of a detective, approaching the works as traces and evidence, scrutinizing over material details and imagining those that couldn't be perceived, a scenario which ultimately led to a troubling feeling of confusion. 

Lost in my own recursive narrative is the artist's attempt to investigate the role of a creator when he himself becomes both the director and the subject in the production of the work. This exhibition marks an interesting transition for Gander, who is frequently critical of artists who appear within their own work, and is perhaps his most autobiographical show to date.

Placed just at the entrance, the work attached to the ceiling is A Sad Deceit, 2011 which takes the form of a tiny and fragile mobile made from the elements of the Didactease emblem which uses mathematical symbols to produce the sentence “There exists only one definition for everything, everywhere at any one time”. This introduction serves as a constant reminder that there’s never “one definition for everything, anywhere, at any one time”.

In a vitrine, Investigation # 39 - Already aware of its own helplessness, 2009 is a tiny badge rendered in solid silver representing a hybrid of the Ferrari and Peugeot logos. This collision of forms is emblematic of Gander’s work.

Human’s being human (blue on yellow), 2012 takes the form of an advertising billboard. A young French fashion model dressed in blue is standing within the space of the gb agency, surprised by a photographer as she gazes at a painting that consists of a yellow circle on white canvas. But here, the model is not posing, her accusing gaze is directed to the photographer but also to the spectator. Using the codes of the advertising imagery and integrating them into the context of art and its exhibition, Ryan Gander seems to question the intimate relation to the artwork and the fragility of this link.

The lady’s not for turning - (Alchemy Box No. 32), 2012 is part of the series of “Alchemy Box”, which experiments with the audience’s trust and belief: the boxes are sealed and contain some objects, which are revealed to the audience in a list displayed on a nearby wall. The only way to know if the objects are really in the box is to open, and thereby destroy the box. What is more important? The ideas in the box, the recipe and ingredients for a new work that doesn’t yet exist, or the box that contains them, which appears to be a sculpture and is considered art? This Alchemy Box takes the form of two platforms, one circular and one square, that we might expect to find in a drawing studio and on which the model may pose. The elements listed on the wall include objects relating to the themes of reconstruction, documentation, as well as the mediated experience. For example, ones can read the description of a color photograph taken during the artist’s research, an image leading to the production of the work Tell my mother not to worry (I), also present in the exhibition.

A diagram crumpled up and abandoned on the floor, titled Career seeking missile, 2011 which seems apparently hand written, shows a dinner seating plan. The spectator may pick it up, ponder over it and take it away.

Ryan Gander
Lost in my own recursive narrative