Ryan Gander: Now there's not enough of it to go around
Annet Gelink Gallery proudly presents the fourth solo exhibition of Ryan Gander (Chester, England, 1976): 'Now there's not enough of it to go around'. Visitors step into a world in which Ikea tables are reaching the ceiling, a Degas ballerina is dreamily lying on the floor and Mondriaan's colours are playing the leading part.
For this exhibition Gander created a new group of works that evoke a re-interpretation of modernism in a contemporary context. The paintings, sculptures and installations refer, now and then in a playful manner, others to the question of authenticity, to the ideals of De Stijl and to the perception of art.
A central piece in the exhibition is 'Samson's Push, or no. VI / Composition No. II', an giant tower of piled up Ikea Lack end tables. The Lack tables, countless households have one, have the colours of Piet Mondriaan's painting 'No. VI / Composition No. II' (1920). Gander's new variant to the geometrical abstraction is an imaginative support for the weight of modernism. In the installation 'Your present time orientation (Second Act) - Random abstraction' the various components from the paintings of Mondriaan and other Stijl-artists have been separated from each other. The familiar coloured fields are now casually leaning against the wall as a random abstraction. For 'Come on, think!' Gander photographed 44 pornographic magazines. However, the photos on the shelves do not show any daring cover girls but are abstract compositions of black and white fields. They represent the magazines in their plastic shop packaging. The image leaves only the titles and the bar code visible to the public. The remaining image recollect the paintings of Mondriaan and Van Doesburg. While they were looking for a divine balance in a universal order, Gander achieves a similar aesthetic by reduction and censoring.
Amidst of the historical and cultural references a bronze ballerina has left her pedestal unnoticed. Fascinated by a small clear blue cube she is lying on her stomach on the gallery floor, deep in thought whether to pick up the cube or to flick it away. This work refers to Edgar Degas' 'La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans'; a sculpture which, because of its numerous posthumously produced copies, raises questions about the original artwork and reproduction.
