https://youtu.be/aDJt2–AFM4 (unable to embed,Embedding disabled by request)
In the first in a series of video interviews, Adrian Searle sits down with artist Ryan Gander to discuss his irreverent and thought-provoking work. Gander explains: ‘It’s just being interested in the world. It’s enjoying keeping your eyes open and your wits about you.’
Quotes from Adrian Searle
“Living is a creative art…”
“Creativity is embedded in living…”
“… starting point and catalyst for people’s thinking”
“… if your eyes are open, everything is absurd.”
I is… (I), 2012, marble, dimensions variable (it is actually a cast of his daughter’s attempt at making a fort at home, and taking a closer look, one could see the outline of the objects the daughter used)
Andrian Searle opened my eyes to how art is not confined to what is out there in the museums or what is deemed “art”. He taught me the lesson of how our lives are art itself and that we just have to observe. Observation is the hard part now, with how our lives are going with the fast paced media and culture the world is heading towards. Not just plain observation but really connecting with the little things, seeing the observation beyond it’s physicality, but what it truly means to you. Connecting this to my project, it opened my mind to the idea that existence is far more than just looking inwards and observing oneself, it’s the connection to what’s around you.
His quote about how everything is absurd if your eyes are open struck a chord with me in regards to the absurdity in life and how people shy away from the absurdity to be “normal”. I figured that my existential crisis and the questions I was asking all led to a certain point of conformity and how I didn’t want to question these conformities as it’ll led to the freedom of making decisions which in turn will led to responsibility, aka bad faith.
Thus to sum up,
My existential crisis = How I may not fit well into what society wants me to be.
For my final works, I want to acknowledge the absurdity in life, using art. Challenging society perspective of what art should be and breaking the conformity that has been restricting me.
The one thing to say about art is that it is one thing. Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else. Art as art is nothing but art. Art is not what is not art.
Ad Reinhardt
Art isn’t the stronghold of the elite, it is everywhere, it surrounds us.”
Ryan Gander