Ryan Gander: Fieldwork, Lisson Gallery

Ryan Gander is something of a cultural magpie. In this latest exhibition at Lisson Gallery in north London, the famous British conceptual artist throws everything from the kitchen sink to his own phone number at the show. 

Who is Ryan Gander?

With an assortment of high-profile solo exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo Paris, Guggenheim Museum New York and Venice Biennale 2011 under his belt, and teaching positions at the Royal Academy of Art Schools and Goldsmiths, Gander is a force to be reckoned with in British contemporary art.

Ryan Gander art

Curiously a lot of Gander's work is made by a team of technical specialists: as a wheelchair user he is often unable to personally make his spectacular imagination come to life. This gives way to a strange world of tinkering chess sets, cocktails and everyday bric-a-brac. For the Venice Biennale, he made an action-figure sized sculpture of himself falling from a wheelchair, a self-portrait caught in a nightmare position.

Lisson Gallery | Ryan Gander exhibition

For his third Lisson show, Gander displays new works that give a behind the scenes look at his inspirations. It's a veritable treasure trove of objects that weave startling stories for the viewer to invent or finish. In the main gallery you'll find Fieldwork (2015), an assortment of banal objects on a vast conveyer belt. From a National Trust sign and a baseball bat covered in nails to two dead pigeons, it's like the memory game gone horribly wrong. Out in the courtyard, things get even stranger, where a semi-transparent two-man tent made out of fibreglass resin has been erected.

Look out for Preparation is everything and Never enough, heavily inspired by Gander's home in Suffolk. In the first of these two works, Gander displays his endless attempts to mix the exact colour of the sky, while the second fills the contemporary London gallery with a shingle beach to reference the stormy coast and the punishment for smugglers to fill their storage cellars with stones. 

This show is all about unanswered questions and the frustrating need to explore, but not being able to. Gander continues to toy with the visitor's experience and break all the rules at this fantastic new contemporary art exhibition at Lisson.