Ryan Gander

Gallery Two Incomplete History of Ideas London based, Ryan Gander’s work is characterised by a conceptual rigor, visual simplicity, and allusive text. There are three works in this installation, the title piece, An Incomplete History of Ideas is an assembly of four seemingly disparate objects including a Bauhaus chess-set from 1924, a reproduction of a 1964 television with the new teletext feature and small wall graphics that attempt to complete the final unfinished Tintin comic book Loose Associations (Version 2:1) is a performance lecture reminiscent of a conversation amongst friends around a table in a pub, where the subject roams aimlessly, linked only by seemingly trivial facts. The final component is a limited edition book in a faux-simplistic style taking the form of a children’s book, The Boy Who Always Looked Up. The book describes the events leading up to the death of the modernist architect Ernö Goldfinger as seen through the eyes of a boy who lives in the shadow of Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower (1973), Notting Hill, London. Gander is a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University, and was a recipient of the Dutch art prize, the Prix de Rome 2003. An Incomplete History of Ideas was created for the Prix de Rome, exhibited at the Gem Museum Voor Actuele Kunst in Den Haag, The Netherlands – its only other showing to date. One of three new exhibitions by visual artists using performance and live art to revisit moments in history, 2 Oct – 14 Nov 04. Picture Credit: Incomplete History of Ideas, 2003 (detail)