Today's lecture is a review of the work by Huddersfield universities very own visiting Prof, Ryan Gander. Dr Rowley is particularly interested in Ryan Gander's work, simply because she struggles to get to grips with him in the first place. He bridges illustration, graphics, sculpture and fine art.
He doesn't work solo, but within a design studio in Suffolk.
The view he has is that there are no boundaries to art.
Ryan Gander was commissioned to create an imaginary piece of work as the poster and TV commercial for a "pretend" new government department.
In turn Gander, then commissioned a number of other artists and design studios to create this work on his behalf.
Gander's use of the word "Imagineering" is a complete play on words.
In a book entitled "the boy who always looked up," which was published in 2014, whilst it has Ryan Gander's name on the front, the only part he actually created was the text. All the graphics and illustration work was done by others. It should be pointed out that Ryan Gander has been in a wheelchair for most of the life.
The book is a tribute to Erno Goldfinger, whom Gander is particularly interested in. Goldfinger created the Trellick Tower in North Kensington, which is where the book is placed. This was a piece of architecture of the post modern 1970s, that Goldfinger created with a cultural ideal which was to look up into a new utopia, but in reality it turns out into being a dystopia over time.
Numbers 1 to 3 Willow Road are where Erno Goldfinger's legacy, (built in 1939) still stands. These are three modernist houses in Kensington that Erno Goldfinger lived in. There are many works of art now placed there, one of which is an intricate chess set, commissioned by Ryan Gander, but again actually made by somebody else.
Gander was influenced by the Bauhaus and the classic object which is in Willow Road is Garritt Rietveldt's chair. This is an iconic modernist chair and a symbol often used to represent the Bauhaus movement.
In Gander's work "Rietveldt's kindling"(2008), he uses Rietveldt's chair as a kind of historical and conceptual art piece that engages with the deconstruction of the original. This is seen even further in another of Gander's work "Rietveldt Reconstruction-Diego (2006)". - Gander is playing with the modern vs the post modern art in the way that rifts on the original.
Another example like this might be the Bauhaus lamp (another iconic modernist product from the school), vs the "a lamp made for the artist's wife (third attempt)" (2013) by Ryan Gander.
The "New Alphabet" in 2008 is Gander's rethink, which was worked in collaboration with Rasmus Spangeard Troelson, to create a new "formalist" invention which is disrupted by "design".
"Vink Crowl", 1967 was a modernist piece of the era, again Gander takes that peace and changes the whole visual communication of it.
Gander's "Loose Association" of 2001 is a printed document (version 1.1), and is printed in book in a black-and-white book where there are only two in existence.
"Culturefield" is a huge book, that Gander, published in 2014. In 2010 he created "Porthole to Culturefield".... which was three ribbons stuck into an air extractor fan.
"Felix provides a stage No. 4 (11 sketches for a sheet of paper on which I was about to draw, as it slipped and fell to the floor)." 2006, - An amazing works, - this is comprised of large crystals of 100 cm diameter spheres which have laser etched facsimiles of the sheets of paper etched into them.
Ryan Gander is an example of the fact that you can now make anything out of anything.
"She spoke in images like some new language-Alchemy box No. 3" (2008). This is another piece by Ryan Gander, which is a slant on Don Judds work, that is made from a set of one-way mirrors, (so that you can't see into it), but only the personal items within the boxes can see out, in effect.
In "This Consequence" 2005, this comprises of an Adidas sweatshirt in white. Normally, the invigilators within galleries always wear black. In this piece, the uniform is white... but, with a splash of blood upon it. It's turned on its head as some form of consequence occurring.
"The fallout of living" are solid marble representations of a sheet thrown over an object.
"Tell my mother not to worry (11) 2012" is currently installed at the Lisson Gallery, and is all about an everyday occurrence.
Gander spends much of his time in the Saxmundham Studios in Suffolk, and does huge amounts of fundraising for the creation of his own works.
In the 2012 dOCUMENTA exhibition, his works "I need to some meaning I can recognise, (the Invisible Pull)" - was installed in the Fredericaanum Hall at Kassel, Germany. The gallery La-Fayette, now owns this piece, which was one of the most expensive pieces of artwork ever made. It was made by the German aviation company Lufthansa, that sponsored much of the work, - which was simply an open gallary room, with a very slight breeze passing through it, as could be seen fom the net curtains swaining in the windows within the gallary. - At first sight, it just appears to be an empty room, but the reality of the exhibition is in fact within the breeze itself, which was very carefully engineered by Lufthansa engineers.
Ryan Gander used the actual words, "It's like 'idea, - diarrhoea' that I get in how I am constantly coming up with ideas".
He often obscures his ideas with a red herring to divert the viewer into something else of interest.
The works "I need something I can recognise (Invisible Pull)" is about the fact that you are surrounded by the work, that you haven't in fact 'noticed'. It's the space between the two titles. Our sensory overload. Within this current culture is a real problem. All this meaning in the world that we simply don't notice goes by every day. Just the little tiny things can have a story made about them to create connections, Gander then creates a narrative which then develops into a piece of art.
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