The Pola Museum of Art is pleased to present an exhibition featuring the most recent works of Ryan Gander (b. 1976).

Based in Suffolk, UK, Ryan Gander is an internationally acclaimed artist whose practice encompasses painting, sculpture, video, text, VR installations, architecture, publications, typefaces, rituals, and performances. Through this wide-ranging, multifaceted body of work, Gander continually reexamines the frameworks and meanings of art. In addition to his own creative activities, he is deeply engaged in curating exhibitions, teaching at universities and art institutions, and supporting children through various initiatives. He has also written and edited numerous books and has both produced and appeared in television programs that promote art and culture. Gander offers a renewed vision of the artist for the contemporary era.

Describing himself as “a sort of neo-conceptualist and amateur philosopher with a ʻno-styleʼ style,” Gander explores hidden narratives and layered meanings embedded in everyday life, infusing his work with intellectual playfulness and incisive humor. His art engages with themes such as absence, invisibility, death, and potential through complex intertwining of reality and fiction. From a frog that speaks human language to unreadable clocks, a fictional flag, and the fabricated history of a certain pair of siblings, his works are strikingly concrete yet imbued with an elusive sense of mystery. As Gander himself has said, “The objective of art is not to communicate, but to provide catalytic ambiguity.” Meaning in his work is never fixed, and through the viewerʼs engagement and the processes of interpretation and association, new narratives emerge with every encounter.

Ryan Gander

Born 1976 in Chester, UK, currently lives and works in Suffolk and London. In recent years, he has had major solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Museo Helga se Alvear (Caćeres, Spain, 2024), Ishikawa Cultural Foundation (Okayama, Japan, 2023), Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2022), NUA East Gallery (Norwich, UK, 2022), Space K (Seoul, 2021), Kunsthalle Bern (Switzerland, 2019), Dazaifu Shrine (Fukuoka, Japan, 2017), National Museum of Art, Osaka (Japan, 2017), Aspen Art Museum (USA, 2016), Musée dʼart contemporain de Montréal (Canada, 2016), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2015), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne, 2015). He has participated in numerous international exhibitions such as the Liverpool Biennale (2018), Biennale of Sydney (2018), dOCUMENTA (2012), and the Venice Biennale (2011). In 2017 he was awarded an OBE (Order of British Empire) for services to contemporary art. In 2022 he was elected as Royal Academician for the category of Sculpture.