The major new Arts Council Collection touring show, Ryan Gander Curates: Night in the Museum is due to open in a few weeks time at Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (16 July – 16 October 2016).

Here, leading British artist Ryan Gander has selected work from a world class national collection of modern and contemporary British art, bringing together over 30 works by artists such as: Patrick Caulfield, Roger Hiorns, Henry Moore, Angela Bulloch, Ben Nicholson, Rebecca Warren, David Hockney, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

You can order the accompanying book here on our online bookstore…

The book and show explore the act of viewing through sculptures, paintings and prints: pairing each figurative sculpture with a contemporary artwork, Gander sets up an objective relationship between the ‘viewing’ sculpture and the painting or print that they are gazing at, provoking questions about the role of the artist, the artwork and the viewer. The human figure and the colour blue, figuration and abstraction are key formal themes/motifs which run throughout this sensitively curated exhibition.

Included in the book is text by the artist on the gaze in contemporary art, and the role of looking. According to Gander, ‘There is something about switching the roles of the spectator and the spectacle that is fascinating. When I look at sculptures of the human figure I am frequently left thinking of all the things that they’ve seen: the visitors to the museum, school children and art students attempting to earnestly recreate them in pastels and charcoal, the other artworks that surround them, artists and technicians installing, their maker perhaps, discreetly calling in on them with proud eyes. This is the world of the silent onlooker.’

A new work by Gander entitled, As old as time itself, slept alone (2015-16), is also shown as part of the exhibition. Commissioned by the Arts Council Collection to mark its 70th anniversary, this is his latest sculptural work in a series where he re-imagines Degas’ The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (1880-81).

After its installment at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the exhibition then moves on to The Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (26 November 2016 – 12 February 2017); and finally on to the new Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester (25 February 21 May 2017).