2024-05-12 05:33:40
Two dozen bright green parrots perch on a large steel chandelier that rests on the floor rather than hanging from the ceiling. Sculptor Kathleen Ryan kneels next to it and wires the candelabra’s electric lamps. The fact that the animals remain seated stoically is due to their nature: they are made of painted ceramic and, when viewed up close, don’t even have wings. Nevertheless, the bulging, teardrop-shaped, hand-shaped objects undoubtedly represent a flock of birds in their entire appearance. The playful contrast between the material used and what was made from it characterizes many of the New York-based artist’s works.
Concrete grapes
For example, in the Galerie der Aktuell, where the American is currently setting up her first exhibition in Germany, there is a series of gray concrete balls that will soon be connected to form a grape sculpture. A little further on, 15 plastic daisies the size of a manhole cover are waiting to be transformed into a floating flower wreath measuring around four by three meters, while a bowling ball covered with mother-of-pearl already lies on its base and oscillates between delicacy and massiveness. From May 17th, the show, set up by guest curator Jasper Sharp, will show a representative selection of 30 of the artist’s works from 2014 to the present.
Ryan often works with plants, but she also uses other materials in a playful way
Which: Bertold Fabricius
Ryan doesn’t like to give explanations about her works, but trusts that they speak for themselves – and in fact the sculptures develop a strong association-promoting power. The four pillars, for example, which stand side by side and reach up to the ceiling, actually have nothing in common with the pillars of antiquity; their plastered surface is uneven and flutes and capitals are missing. But they are whitewashed, like the houses of Greece, and have the mysterious presence of ancient ruins. In addition, the marble base with the concrete clusters the size of footballs next door bears the title “Bacchante”: In Greek mythology, the Bacchantes were the companions of Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility and ecstasy.
Spoiled fruits made from foam
Antiquity is just one of many reference points in the complex oeuvre of the Santa Monica-born artist, who was born in 1984 and received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California. With her “Bad Fruits” she refers to Dutch baroque painting of the 17th century, in which still lifes with overloaded tables full of fermenting fruit plates remind us of the transience of everything earthly. Ryan’s huge, spoiled fruits, however, were not painted in oil, but rather sculpted from foam and studded with countless glass beads and gemstones. Stone by stone, the artist depicts rot, mold and maggots from precious materials, creating diversely shaded objects that are both repulsive and attractive in their beauty.
With “Bad Melon,” the artist from California, who grew up in the land of grapes and melons, peaches and citrus fruits, created one of her most impressive works. The immensely large watermelon appears to have fallen to the gallery floor and shattered into five pieces. The red pulp is in various stages of decomposition. Thumb-sized cast iron and brass flies sit on the uneven surface, which is a beaded mosaic of cherry and smoky quartz, amazonite, jasper, aventurine, rhodonite, rhodochrosite, labradorite, Botswana agate, carnelian and glass. Each of these differently shaped minerals was drilled through, fitted with a needle and inserted by hand. The shell of the melon fragments is not green but shiny silver because it is made of aluminum: Ryan specially purchased an old Airstream Safari camper from 1973, dismantled it and fitted the gem-studded artificial fruit pieces into a shell made of light metal parts.
Pearls, crystal and gemstones
The Airstream caravan, also known as the “Silver Rocket”, has been built in the USA since the 1930s. It represents mobility in the 20th century and the leisure activities of the American middle class. Through the dismantling of the caravan and the connection with the morbid melon, the artist also refers to decadence and excess – here not in reference to the Baroque period, but to the consumer society in her home country.
Ryan uses scrap metal and machine parts just as naturally as pearls, crystal and gemstones. She often combines both material complexes, for example in the sculpture “Generator II”, which at first glance resembles an opened seashell. However, their shells are the hood and trunk lid of a Volkswagen, between which Ryan stretched a spider web made of stainless steel cables. Rows of quartz crystal balls were threaded onto it, glittering like dewdrops in the daylight gallery and forming an exciting contrast to the scrap metal. The work also addresses the economic decline in the “Rust Belt”, which was once the largest industrial region in the USA.
“Bad Lemon” for the Kunsthalle
The installation “Hanging Fruit” also consists partly of a solid metal object, a kind of caliper, whose arms hold a colorful collection of artificial fruit. In this case, the artist did not make the objects herself, but purchased them from junk shops and on eBay: the fruits are made of plastic beads and were sold as craft sets in the 1960s and 70s. Various unknown hobbyists contributed to the work of art, which pays homage to the passion for collecting, the value of found objects and recycling. The plastic fruit gave Ryan the idea of making his own bead-studded fruit.
For example, the work “Bad Lemon”, which was created specifically for the Kunsthalle show and is shown together with the peach sculpture “Bad Peach” in historical display cases in the museum’s old building – not far away from the Dutch masters of the Golden Age. Because Ryan’s lemon is pure vanitas: the gemstone-studded surface simulates the typical green mold Penicillium digitatum, which occurs in the soil of citrus fruit-growing areas and is responsible for the fruit’s decay after harvest. Ryan depicts this green rot with precious gemstones, while she uses mundane glass beads for the healthy areas of the lemon peel.
#Exhibition #Hamburg #Kathleen #Ryans #German #debut