Ryan Gander
Artist Ryan Gander’s ‘Substance’ takes its starting point from a formalist experiment in typography; where language and communication as invention are disrupted by another type of creativity; design. New Alphabet, designed by Wim Crouwel in 1967 was a radical attempt to alter the recognisable characters of a language through the filter of a design structure. The New New Alphabet is Ganders typeface of additional marks, which when imposed on Crowell’s original, creates a more accessible and readable typeface. This subversion of utopian design creates a tension between the possibilities of invention and the functional and democratic nature of language.
Ryan Gander is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and Lisson Gallery, London. Gander’s recent solo exhibitions include the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam in 2003 and 2007, MUMOK, Vienna, and CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco in 2007. In January 2008 Gander's solo show, 'Heralded as the new black', curated by Nigel Prince, premiered at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. The exhibition traveled to the South London Gallery, London, 2008, and to the Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, 2009
