Figures:
You ruin everything you adore, 2017
What a force for good you run, 2017
I want them to see it just like me, 2017
Wall works:
I be…(xix), 2017
Forces outside of you (Because you cede your life decisions and consequences to forces outside of you), 2017
The playful yet complex practice of Ryan Gander (born 1976, UK) is stimulated by queries, investigations or what-ifs, rather than strict rules or limits. His newly commissioned works for EVERYTHING AT ONCE consider the psychology behind looking, feeling and wishing.
Four life-size sentinels – based on armatures used by artists to model the human form – are positioned in dramatic poses, each evoking a different emotion, despite their featureless faces. Two characters recreate the scene of the Pietà (meaning pity in Italian) in which Mary cradles the limp body of Jesus; one reaches down into a glowing portal and another contemplates his brethren, as well as a draped mirror and a stairway to heaven. Collectively titled Dramaturgical frameworks for structure and stability, in reference to Erving Goffman’s sociological approach that uses theatre to portray and evaluate social interaction, these figures also play on the notion of spectatorship, shifting the relationship between spectator and spectacle.