Artists > 2010: Framing Identity > Ryan Gander

Work

Ryan Gander’s multi-piece The 4th Baron Egerton’s 16-plumed Bird of Paradise, is a project in which an additional narrative involving Tatton’s provenance emerges. Gander has orchestrated a new story for an old site; one that suggests travel, exotica and grandeur as well as loss, disambiguation and shame. It is a familiar tale: an artefact too exquisite to resist appears, and a nobleman travelling the globe adopts it not simply as his own personal keepsake, but as a descriptor for all that his family represents. In time, the artefact is revealed to be a hoax and all that the never-having-lived but altogether dead relic represents is stripped away. Gone are the statuary (now consigned to the Arboretum). Gone, too, is the artefact itself (now crammed into the Manager’s office, like so many other ‘undisplayables’). The remnants of the bird’s weight in the history of Tatton are now cobbled and obscure: the occasional reminder seen on a chutney jar label, or a postcard, hopelessly out of date, still waiting to be sold in the Gift Shop. 

Biography

Having previously completed a research residency at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, Ryan Gander participated in the artists’ residency program of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In 2009, Gander will present his first major solo retrospective exhibition called ‘The die is cast’, hosted by Villa Arson, Nice, as well as two solo exhibitions that run concurrently at Kadist and gb Agency, Paris called ‘It’s a right Heath Robinson affair’. Group shows include ‘Desire Acquire’ at the Bob van Orsouw Gallery, Zurich, ‘The Space of Words’ at Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, and ‘Younger than Jesus’ at the New Museum in New York. Gander has recently been awarded the Zürich Art Prize, 2009. Gander lives and works in London and is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; gb Agency, Paris; Lisson Gallery, London and Taro Nasu Gallery, Tokyo.