The time has come for us to talk about Ryan Gander. He’s obviously considered the bee’s knees right now, with exhibitions all over and fawning articles and whatnot. Why, I couldn’t tell you. True to his It Boy status, his work runs through ‘Illuminations’ in the Arsenale and the Main Pavilion like a persistent tumour, popping up and bumming you out every time you’ve dared to hope you’ve seen the last of him: some nerdy polyhedral dice in a case, various other precious conceptual interventions that make you want to slap him, more lumber piled against the wall, this time with wall text making a pathetic and half-hearted appeal to Mondrian because the bits of wood are all painted in bright colours.
No other artist seems to be so well represented either in terms of quantity or of geographical distribution across the Biennale sites. Has he been slipping the curator secret lengths? I can’t think of any other sensible reason for his ubiquity when one discounts the quality of his work or ideas, both of which are unimpressive… albeit par for the course in the desiccated, pretentious, all-head-and-no-heart world of certain art critics and curators.
Tags: Arsenale, art speak, artbollocks, Biennale, contemporary art, Curator Error, DISAPPROVED, doing it wrong, group exhibition, GTFO, junk art, Venice
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