Epiphany…learnt through hardship
2012 - Installation (Installation)
Figure: 20.00 x 20.00 x 20.00 cm, Cube: 100.00 x 40.00 x 40.00 cm
Ryan Gander
Epiphany…learnt through hardship is composed of a bronze sculpture depicting the model of the little dancer of Degas, in the pose of a female nude photographed by Edward Weston (Nude, 1936) accompanied by a blue cube. The work refers to the positive occupations of space and the absence of form and structure, to the relationship between the visible and the invisible, to memory, and to the relationship we have to images and to our history. The work refers to childhood, biography and learning to question how meaning is made and how history is remembered and performed. The installation of the piece on the floor of the exhibition space rouses a physical sense of being-in-space to which we are often unconscious; we move into the earth as we approach the work.
Ryan Gander’s practice explores what-ifs, questioning the structural limits and rules of society and being. His work, which ranges from installations, sculptures and photographs, to performative lectures, publications, inventions and intervention, looks at the production of art and culture, to enquire into the processes through which art is perceived and valued. The spirit of his practice centers on development, education, and storytelling, hoping to evoke immediate and honest engagements by the viewer with his narratives. Gander is a collector. His studio is filled with found images, personal images, printed documents and newspaper clippings.
