STORE Gallery

Ryan Gander
Somewhere between 1886 and 2030 (2005)
21 Apr — 28 May 2005

Niru Ratnam: The clue is in the title isn't it? It’s like the answer is in the question.
Ryan Gander: It's a bit more complicated than that.
NR: Is it?
RG: There are lots of questions and lots of answers – it's not like there's one question.
NR: Okay. Well tell me about the title.
RG: The title is based on the standard description used by museums when they can't date art, like when they say something dates from between 1883 and 1885. But my title is ridiculous because the dates are so far apart – there's about 150 years between the two dates so it’s not very useful really. It plays with the convention that dates always come straight after the title of artworks, in the way that it’s called ‘Somewhere Between 1886 and 2030 (2005)’.
NR: Does the title refer to the works on display?
RG: Well, there are 6 pieces in the show that don't really make sense – they're slightly clumsily put together. There's no real reason to make links between them, but when you see the show you'll start to forge links between them anyway because visitors always expect links in an exhibition.
NR: But there’s a sound piece that tells you all about the work.
RG: It doesn't tell you about the work. If you go to the National Gallery you might get an audio guide and you type in the number of the painting you're looking at, and a voice tells you about the work. The information that you hear is really factual and clinical but then there's always something anecdotal at the end, like some story about the dog in the corner of the painting... But mine is not a straight description – it gives you clues about the process of making the exhibition. It talks about the ideas that I've discarded as well as those that are physically represented in the space.
It kind of contradicts itself because on the one hand the viewer gets closer to the work because they are given the opportunity to understand something about the way it was made, which demystifies the process of making art. Whilst on the other hand, the idea that I'm using voices other than my own distances me from the work and puts some kind of authority into the description of the works. So the exhibition is playing between those two poles at the same time.
NR: What about Jim? What was that all about?
RG: What, him having a go at me about my work?
NR: Yes. How did that argument end?
RG: He’s wrong.
NR: He’s wrong?
RG: Yes, he’s wrong. It’s quite interesting because Sarah Kent said the same thing as well.
NR: So she’s wrong as well? I don’t think that should go in the press release.
RG: No, it should. She said the associations between the different ideas in my work ought to be clearer because otherwise the whole thing needs explaining through wall texts or essays, which she thinks is bad.
NR: I think that’s a parody of what she says.
RG: No, that’s what she says. Read it.
NR: Okay I will.
RG: But what I say is in response is why can’t I use verbal explanation, description and conversation as my work? Why can't I choose that as one of a hundred different ways of making work?
NR: I don’t know. Perhaps you can.
RG: And Jim was angry or frustrated because he thinks that when I use bits of half-forgotten urban myths or fables, I pretend they are all true. He thinks I don’t have the authority to do that. It’s like my lecture where some things aren’t true but because they are presented in a lecture they sound like they ought to be true. But it’s art. I’m an artist re-appropriating the form of the lecture. I’m not an artist doing a lecture.
NR: What about the games?
RG: The polyhedral dissections? They're not games, they're puzzles. Games you play with someone else, puzzles you solve on your own.
NR: This press release is meant to be a point of information for viewers. Should we talk about the silence that some viewers might experience?
RG: You’re trying to put the silence in the press release.
NR: Yes. What about the white track suits? You are joking about that?
RG: No.
NR: Brilliant.
RG: Is that it? It’s not very long? It’s only ten minutes. How long do you want the press release to be?
NR: Like a conversation although this is not a great conversation.
RG: No, but you could make bits up. Is it going to be one side of A4?
NR: Actually when I transcribe I usually add a few bits or take a few away.
RG: That’s what you should put in…
NR: I once interviewed an artist and had to make the whole thing up…
RG: …‘Usually when I transcribe I add things’
NR: …because the tape recorder wasn’t working.
RG: I’ll stop it – yeah?

With thanks to Stuart Bailey, Mark Beasley, Jacqueline Bebb, Stephen Best, Sara De Bondt, Ben Cain, Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Pandora Colin, James Dalgety, Bill Drummond, Pedro da costa Felgueiras, Alice Fisher, Dan Fox, Aurélien Froment, Tom Gidley, James Goggin, Clive Gregory, Richard Hayward, Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal, Will Holder, Gemma Holt, Maxine Kopsa, Sally O’Reilly, Radim Pesko, Spike, David Thorpe, Martin Vincent, Colin Watmough, Bedwyr Williams and Richard Wilson