Ryan Gander

Ryan Gander often creates invisible works, such as anonymous advertisments in newspapers, or areas which blur into the architectural context in which they are created. These are works that create fleeting narratives and give the sensation that the space is inhabited by people or influenced by stories yet unknown. A mystifier and a narrator of unlikely situations which are often confused with day to day life. When working in and around that historical and cultural hybrid known as the pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau in Bologna (1925 – 1977), Ryan Gander has adopted a creative and imaginative approach which – right from the linguistic reconstruction of this building, designed by Le Corbusier and itself a symbol of the utopias of modernist functionalism, and going through its ‘life’ events up until its reconstruction in Bologna in 1977 for the SAIE trade fair – redeems his comments from being a mere act of gaining intellectual consciousness. The pavilion becomes, through N ine Projects for the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau not only in the internal rooms of the pavilion but also in the surrounding public park, a genuine time machine. This allows us to travel back and forth in time and space, from 1925 to 1977, only to return to the present (2006) and attempt a vertiginous leap into the future (to the year 2056). Thus the project has both a playful side while providing a declaration of intentions with regard to the museum institution and all that it should be able to conserve as well as imagine.

Catalogue contributors: Will Bradley, Charles Esche, Francesco Manacorda, François Piron, Andrea Viliani.

Pressetext

Ryan Gander
Nine Projects for the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau
Programm: Coming Soon MAMbo + Museum – Shows
Konzept: Gianfranco Maraniello, Andrea Viliani
Kurator: Andrea Viliani