Ryan Gander: Things Just Happen to Me

For the latest exhibition in East Hampton, Lisson Gallery is pleased to present a selection of recent works by Ryan Gander. The solo presentation, Gander’s ninth with the gallery and first in East Hampton, features objects and installations, along with a new series of paintings on indigo Japanese Denim. The selection is at once a small survey of the artist’s complex practice and an account of his experience over the last year.

Ryan Gander is increasingly skeptical of things that shout, or demand to be looked at. In the artist’s own words, he is more interested in “small things that may seem forgettable and insignificant, but are colossal in their consequences, that command our attention without requesting it, communicating to us in a deafening whisper and etching themselves into our memories because we discovered it on our own terms alone.” Viewable from the front window of the exhibition hangs This natural sign (Some painted slogans, others stood calmly staring at the moon) (2021), one of a series of scenery paintings depicting a full moon witnessed by the artist from the same vantage point over several nights, during a period of reduced geographical mobility. The works in this series were made by printing the base of an acrylic paint-coated pan, found by the artist in his kitchen, or with the trash can from his studio, described by the artist as “the most unromantic signifiers of a studio”, onto 10 oz indigo Japanese denim. Within the gallery is Take confidence in your abilities (2019), a mouse that appears to lie perfectly still on its back, belly to the sky, sleeping, overcome with fatigue. On closer inspection, it breathes gently, its petite torso moving up and down with each inhale and exhale.

I be… (xxxii) (2020) belongs to a series of gold, stately antique mirrors draped with marble dust sheets. With reflections obscured from view, the work’s impenetrability frustrates viewers, starkly revealing the barriers inherent to self-realization. These works are part of the artist’s investigation of historical and contemporary concerns colliding with a single object — from the stylistic reference to ancient Greek and Roman sculptures to the unveiled narcissism of the ‘selfie’ age. A machine to send you somewhere else (2020) is a motion-activated ticket machine, re-programmed to print unique, computer-generated GPS coordinates of randomly selected land-based locations somewhere on the planet. Within the exhibition, visitors are redirected to an encounter outside the gallery space.

Things Just Happen to Me follows solo exhibitions at the gallery by Masaomi Yasunaga, Roy Colmer, Leon Polk Smith, Ceal Floyer, Laure Prouvost, and Sean Scully. Lisson Gallery’s East Hampton space will continue its focused format featuring both influential, historical artworks and debuting new bodies of work in an experimental, intimate setting. An exhibition of work by Olga de Amaral will be on view after the Gander presentation, from August 12 to September 5, 2021. The gallery is open to the public each Thursday through Saturday, from 11am to 6pm, Sundays from 12 – 5pm and Wednesdays by appointment.