Ryan Gander is an artist living and working in London and Suffolk, UK.
2018 Biennial Year Find out more
Through associative thought processes that connect the everyday and the esoteric, his artworks materialise in many different forms: from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance and more. Gander’s work involves a questioning of language and knowledge, a reinvention of the modes of appearance and creation of an artwork.
Time Moves Quickly was a major new project by Ryan Gander. Gander worked collaboratively with five children from Knotty Ash Primary School in Liverpool – Jamie Clark, Phoebe Edwards, Tianna Mehta, Maisie Williams and Joshua Yates – to produce a series of artworks and a film exploring the activities carried out in the workshops. The project took inspiration from the Montessori method of education, based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play.
In addition to a presentation at Bluecoat, Gander and the children created a new public artwork for the city: five bench-like sculptures which could be found on the plateau behind the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. For this new commission, Gander dissected a model of architect Frederick Gibberd’s modernist cathedral into a series of simple ‘building blocks’. The blocks were then reassembled into different configurations by the children. The maquettes that Gander and the children created were reproduced on a larger scale to produce this new public seating arrangement within the cathedral grounds.
Gander has exhibited internationally for over a decade, including at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2017); Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada (2016); Manchester Art Gallery, UK (2014); Tate Britain, London, UK (2013); Tate Liverpool, UK (2013); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2010).
Ryan Gander with Jamie Clark, Phoebe Edwards, Tianna Mehta, Maisie Williams and Joshua Yates at Liverpool Biennial 2018
From five minds of great vision (The Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King disassembled and reassembled to conjure resting places in the public realm), 2018
Glass reinforced concrete
Exhibited at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral plateau
Reading without stigma, 2018
Single channel video, 17:58 min
Exhibited at Bluecoat
Rietveld Reconstruction series, 2018
Timber
Exhibited at Bluecoat
Key performance indicator series, 2018
Acrylic on canvas, tray frame
Exhibited at Bluecoat
Creative play involves some risk taking – Abstraction Distraction series, 2018
Stained pine on stained birch plywood
Exhibited at Bluecoat
Prototype for Sensitised logic series, 2018
Wood, steel, paint
Exhibited at Bluecoat
All commissioned by Liverpool Biennial
Ryan Gander: From five minds of great vision
In a major new project for Liverpool Biennial called Time Moves Quickly, artist Ryan Gander collaborated with schoolchildren on the creation of a series of artworks, including five bench-like sculptures for the city’s iconic Metropolitan Cathedral. Watch to find out how the artist and children dissected the modernist building into simple ‘building blocks’ to create a new public seating arrangement within the cathedral grounds.
Liverpool Biennial 2018: Beautiful world, where are you? takes place across the city’s public spaces, galleries and civic buildings from 14 July until 28 October.
Video: Carl Davies, FACT Video Production Services
LB2018 Snapshot: Ryan Gander
“I imagine it will look something like a re-discovered Russian Constructivist exhibition by some Constructivist artist that you’ve never heard of”
Artist Ryan Gander has been working collaboratively with five children from Knotty Ash Primary School to create a major new project for Liverpool Biennial 2018. Find out how the artist and the children are going about creating a series of public artworks at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral alongside a curated exhibition at Bluecoat.
Liverpool Biennial 2018: Beautiful world, where are you? takes place from 14 July – 28 October across the city’s public spaces, galleries, museums and civic buildings.