Artists: Ryan Gander, Cally Spooner, Mark Geffriaud
Exhibition title: Time Lines
Presented by: gb agency
Venue: Independent Régence, Brussels, Belgium
Date: September 8 – October 22, 2015
Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist, Independent Régence and gb agency
The exhibition Time Lines features three artists of different nationalities and backgrounds represented by gb agency, all of whose work emerges from a common use of concepts by associations of ideas or varied readings. Time is thus essential in the development of the creative process, allowing their work to blossom with slow maturation.
British artist Cally Spooner developed her project “And You Were Wonderful, On Stage”, originally as a performance for the Stedelijk Museum, the Tate Modern and Performa in New York over a two year period. One of the sources used by the artist for the production of this work is the book of the philosopher Bernard Stiegler “For a new critique of Political Economy” in which he examines our relationship to technology and its impact on our use of language. The artist chooses to use “technical failures” of celebrities such as Beyonce, Lance Armstrong or politician Michael Gove who, each in a moment of their career, have perverted language in its use, and lied to the public. The slow construction of the piece has grown from elements of their language and comments of outraged and disappointed youtubers, then rearranged by the artist in a libretto used for the performance and later for the final work which consists of an installation with 5 films. The personal experience of the artist, who for a period of time was a writer in an advertising agency, is also part of this creative process. She sometimes had to tap into the personal experiences of employees in order to transform into advertising slogan “serving” the company. “And You Were Wonderful, On Stage” shows bodies performing, bodies under pressure in the workspace, in sports or on stage.
The work of Mark Geffriaud often reflects upon the notion of time, showing us objects symbolizing its passage. “Sleeper 1” functions as a transformative portrait of a section of a rail of the High Line in NY. The artist, through carbon 14 technology, has converted a wooden rail section into graphite powder, exposing the structure. Encapsulated within “Sleeper 1”, the graphite powder is protected from UV light, and is the embodiment of the history of Bell Laboratories in New York, who pioneered scientific discoveries that have forever changed the way we communicate. The rhythm in “Auto” gives the exhibition tempo in a hypnotic movement. This machine created by mathematician Claude Shannon who shuts off on its own with a disturbingly simple mechanism but nevertheless recalls the information theory invented by Shannon in the same Bell Labs in 1948. This established communication in terms of “bits” of information, and in binary code. The REEL series represents various documents photographed on the same white wall, that of the artist’s studio. These photos, newspaper articles or sheets of paper, change and evolve over time, based on the artist’s research and interest. They form elements of a film projected on the wall of his studio, like a multitude of frames moving in the time of thought and creation of the artist.
Ryan Gander’s work is devised according to his mind in perpetual search and questioning. Free associations from everyday life anecdotes, settings, or the artist’s specific interest such as design and architecture intertwine and meet over time, during the development of a work constantly changing. The viewer’s imagination in front of a work by Ryan Gander is perpetually being tested around recurring themes. His work is often in an in-between, a hard to define space, one that gives birth to creativity, like a child enthralled by ordinary things with an eagerness constantly renewed. Thus Associative Sequel or Associative Photograph connecting various and a priori heterogeneous elements or the fake black ball artificially suspended in space, or of these lamps originally designed for his wife which consist of the assembly of objects from DIY stores, turning them into fragile sculptures of surprising colors and shapes. “And you will be changed” is a video showing Emma Lavigne, curator of the Pierre Huyghe retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, leading a ghost tour of the exhibition in the now empty space of the Galerie Sud where it was staged. Thanks to a precise description of Pierre Huyghe’s artworks, the viewer is transported into a new space-time, that of the imaginary past exhibition.
Cally Spooner, Will Utility Cease, 2012, Two redited scores annoted, 29,7 x 21 cm, framed 34,2 x 25,5 cm , Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Cally Spooner, Baby I got Better Things to be Doing with my Time, 2014, Single Channel Video, Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Mark Geffriaud, Grand-bi, 2015, Stéréoscope wooden box with lens , 10 x 18 x 17 cm , Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Mark Geffriaud, Grand-bi, 2015, Stéréoscope wooden box with lens , 10 x 18 x 17 cm , Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Ryan Gander, A Lamp made by the Artist for his Wife (Sixteenth attempt), 2013, A window-mounted lamp, 54 x 56 x 16 cm, Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Mark Geffriaud, Auto, 2015, Software, video on youtube, wooden shelve, computer shelve , 69 x 80 x 32 cm, Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Mark Geffriaud, Sleeper #1, 2014-2015, Plinth, photo lens with carbone 14, glass, fluorescent tube, cardboard, plexiglas, 58 x 41,5 x 84 cm, Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Ryan Gander, Your cognitive Dissonance, 2014, A painting about Rembrandt detail of painting, 55 x 43 cm , Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
Mark Geffriaud, Reel 1, 2014, Pigmentary print on paper, 83 x 60 cm, framed 94,5 x 71,5 cm; Reel 2, 2014, Pigmentary print on paper, 66 x 47 cm, framed 77 x 58 cm; Reel 3, 2014, Pigmentary print on paper, 64 x 47 cm, framed 74,7 x 54,6 cm, Courtesy of the artist and gb agency, Paris
