Objects and various materials
92 x 40 x 40 cm
Acquisition in 2016

Ryan Gander
B. in 1976 in Chester (United Kingdom), lives and works in London and Suffolk.

Each of Ryan Gander’s works—installation, photography, sculpture, painting, conferences, video—embodies a new idea while stimulating the imagination and thought of the public. The artist often proceeds by the association of ideas: a sign, image, face, giving rise to new ideas and paying little heed to the hierarchies between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture. His theoretical aspirations—Ryan Gander’s work provides material for thought on Art and its functions—intersect with personal and subjective concerns, often punctuated by autobiographical references. In 2012, Ryan Gander began to design and make a lamp for his wife, by recovering and assembling objects and functional elements, bought in a DIY store. An amateur designer, the artist enjoyed making this object, while declaring himself ‘disappointed’ by the outcome. Functional and sculptural, the work results from a very direct intention that contrasts with the conceptual nature of his approach. In a sense, the Duchampesque ready-made exudes a sense of jubilance and fun, the associated objects finding a new value, scripted by the artist and the narrative title that he gives to the work. Since then, each new lamp that he creates is numbered as an ‘attempt’, the use of this term involving the idea of an ineluctable ‘failure’; a term that is not exactly accurate, given the pleasure the artist takes in its conception and design.