Icarus Falling – An exhibition lost by Ryan Gander


[Title] Icarus Falling – An exhibition lost
[Artist] Ryan Gander
[Date] November 3, 2011 – January 29, 2012

①Bang!
A poster for a fictional exhibition called ‘You need to see this beauty broken down’ held at Maison Hermès Forum, Tokyo, JPN, incorporating
elements from the Google Chrome and Oyster Card logos.

②Who said this was true multiplicity anyway
Thirty portraits of the thirty exhibitions previously shown at the Hermès exhibition space, drawn by a courtroom visualization artist, to represent the
artists in the year 2038.

③H
A large, plexiglass transparent letter ‘H’ sculpture as described by Hergé in the cartoon book ‘Tintin and Alphart’ , as imagined by the artist.

④The futility in drawing something that is moving
An artwork in the form of a poem that describes another artwork, written by Marcel Broodthaers as imagined in 2019, age 96 years. Displayed as if
discarded on the floor of the gallery.

⑤It smells like darkness – (Alchemy Box #26)
An Alchemy Box disguised as a packed away and locked book vendors stand, that one would usually expect to see wall mounted on the bank of the
Seine, Paris. But on this occasion is left sitting at an angle on the gallery floor. The Alchemy Box contains one book selected by each of the
exhibitions who have previously shown at the Hermès exhibition space. The contents within are listed on the wall by rubdown transfer.

⑥Matthew Young falls from the year 1985 into a white room (Maybe this is the way it is supposed to happen)
Pieces of broken glass and sections from a window frame lie on the gallery floor, as if someone had fallen through a window with some force. The glass is made from stunt glass used in the film industry for special effects. The title refers to a fictional exhibition Sculpture of the Space Age mentioned in J. G. Ballard’ s short story The Object of the Attack (1984). The exhibition was supposedly held at the Serpentine Gallery in the late 1970’s yet exists only as a title in Ballard’s short story.

⑦Icarus Falling
A spot lit area, dirty markings on the wall and fixings to suggest where the missing painting – ‘Myth of Depth’ by Mark Tansey (1949 – ), would have hung.

⑧It’s not that it’s complicated, it’s just that you’re confused
A small flatscreen LCD monitor displayed on the wall. The screen shows a paused still from the History Channel, in one corner of the screen there is a blue pause logo, in the other is the colour biography channel logo. The image on the screen is of the fictional artist Santo Stern as a young man,with onlooker.

⑨This shit goes on forever
Marks left from fixtures, light faded outline and dust. Set high up on the wall, from a series of small transparent perspex characters as one would find in institutions such as The New Museum, NY. Spelling out “The Saon De Samothrake Gallery” a fictional arts benefactor associated with the Greek Mythological history of Hermès. Saon, king of Samothrake is said to have been born from Rhene, nymph of Samothrake and Hermès was the great Olympian god.

⑩Investigation # 16 – Although you’ve given me everything (Maatsch)
Two photographs documenting an archival photograph of Ohne Titel (Untitled), 1928, Oil on wood, 37 x 37.5 cm by Thilo Maatsch (1900-1983) from the collection of Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH). This work consists of two images, each measuring 50 x 66.5 cm, displayed in frames side by side with a gap of 10 cm between them.

⑪The Best Club
A black curtain is hung in front of a wall in the exhibition space, suggesting a light trap and then a video installation beyond, positioned close to the curtain is a plaque explaining that the would-be work beyond is a video installation by Georg Paul Thomann (1945 – 2005), purported to be a renowned Austrian conceptual artist of the late 20th century. In reality, he was the fictitious creation of the Austrian art group monochrom.

⑫Aesthetics and ethics, looking good is just not enough
A redesigned ashtray for Cafe Aubette by Theo van Doesburg (1883 – 1931) from 1927, from the perspective that Van Doesburg and Mondrian had never met.

⑬This Consequence
An ‘All White’ Adidas tracksuit with golden embroidered logo. Additionally two small stains are discreetly embroidered on both the top and the trousers in dark red thread. The tracksuit is worn by an arts administrator, curator, gallerist, director or invigilator associated with the institution exhibiting the work whenever they are present in the exhibition space.

⑭And you will be changed
A documentary video shot following the curator around an empty Hermès space. The tour by the curator and the film would be of a previous exhibition, imagined and remembered by the curator as if the artwork was still there.

⑮Remember this, you will need to know it later
A black and white photograph of the desk in the studio of Aston Ernest as it was found following his death.

⑯The Locked Room
The artwork “Woody”, 2000 by Liam Gillick (b.1 964) as imagined from 2034, taking the form of an elaborate board game that expands across the floor of the exhibition space, above which hangs a black gloss painted tissue paper lamp shade. To one side sits another, smaller cluster of game boards.

⑰In Spades?
A thirty sided dice, made with a simple icon, character, marking made by the artist to represent each of the thirty previous shows in the exhibition space.

⑱The Observatory, or, it’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that you’re confused
A bronze figurine of a young female ballerina resembling Degas’ model standing in a typical ballerinas stance in the gallery space using her fingers and thumbs to make a frame through which to view a work of art by another artist in the same space. In the same space as the figure is an ultramarine blue cube measuring 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm and a plinth measuring 10 x 6 x 6 cm, painted the same colour as the gallery walls.

⑲An alternative timeframe for an art exhibition
Two cube series monitors sit on the floor of the exhibition space displaying a TV industry one-minute countdown clock. One clock shows a standard countdown with the final 20 seconds as a lack-lead blank screen. The second is reanimated to count out 51 seconds as though it looks like it is counting out a minute. The 9 second loss in every minute relates to an average loss of programming time by commercial television channels as opposed to publicly funded ones in order to make time for advertising to produce revenue. Both clocks are looped

⑳“Scorning the abstract as an innate human device” Ramó Nash
An oil on canvas painting, that is a realisation of a painting as featured in the unfinished comic strip, Tintin and Alph-Art by Belgian comics artist

Hergé. It was intended to be the twenty-fourth and final book in the Tintin series and was published posthumously (despite its unfinished status) in 1986 by Casterman in association with La Fondation Herge, and was republished in 2004 with further material.

㉑I am broken
An artwork made to the same proportions as a small ‘stack’ work by Donald Judd (1928 – 1994) made entirely from the worlds most popular
prefabricated LACK shelving system from the Swedish company IKEA, roughly cut to size with a hand saw.

Copyrighted Image