PRESENTATION: Kathleen Ryan
Kathleen Ryan recasts found and handmade objects as spectacular, larger-than-life meditations on consumer society, desire, and the fine line between kitsch and class. These materials are often at odds with the subjects they represent: delicate, sensual grapes are rendered with heavy, utilitarian concrete; mold colonies are composed of semiprecious gemstones.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hamburger Kunsthalle Archive
As in Dutch Vanitas paintings, in the work of Kathleen Ryan the relics of the everyday (seed pods, jewelry, domestic fixtures, moldy fruit) become tongue-in-cheek allegories for sexuality, decadence, and the cycle of life. “KATHLEEN RYAN “at the Hamburger Kunsthalle is the artist’s first museum exhibition in Germany. A selection of 30 sculptural works traces the evolution of Ryan’s artistic practice from 2014 to the present. Ryan crafts fascinating, mostly larger-than-life, monumental objects, including flowers, fruit, vegetables, jewellery, spider webs and flocks of birds, out of found, collected and reused materials ranging from pins, plastic beads and shells to fishing poles, rubber tires and car bonnets. The artist often chooses materials that are utterly at odds with the actual nature of the objects they represent: The mould on the skin of a peach in “Bad Peach (Bite)” from 2022, is meticulously recreated with hundreds of semi-precious stones; the skin of oversized pieces of melon in “Bad Melon (Big Chunk)” (2020) is made from a dismantled Airstream motorhome; grapes – in “Bacchante” (2017) are cast from heavy concrete; the necklaces – Pearls from 2017 are strung from bowling balls; and towering neoclassical columns, by contrast, are composed of filigree glazed ceramic plates in “The Rise and Fall” (2014). Ryan’s works evoke a mix of wonder, humour and disgust, prompting reflection on wealth and waste, decadence and decay, and the cycle of consumption and life. At the same time, the imaginative whimsy of the objects suggests the possibility of renewal and a second chance. The exhibition space on the first floor of the Galerie der Gegenwart, with its windows running all around, offers an open and light-filled setting for discovering works that have never before been shown in Germany, some of them produced by the artist especially for the Hamburg show. Two of Ryan’s artworks are dis-played above the large staircase at the historical main entrance to the Kunsthalle, where their surprising presence contrasts with the Wilhelminian-style interior.
Photo: Installation view of the exhibition KATHLEEN RYAN, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2024, © Kathleen Ryan, © Hamburger Kunsthalle, Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography
Info: Guest curator: Jasper Sharp, Assistant curator: Ifee Tack, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Glockengießerwall 5, Hamburg, Germany, Duration: 17/5-11/8/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-wed & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-21:00, www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/
Right: Kathleen Ryan, Hanging Fruit, 2018, cast iron, recycled plastic beads. 183 x 48.2 x 43cm, © Kathleen Ryan. Courtesy the artist, Photo: EPW Studio
Right: Kathleen Ryan, Generator II, 2022, Quartz crystal, silver plated stainless steel cable, silver plated crimps, steel, Volkswagen bonnet and boot. 124.46 x 118.11 x 88,9 cm, Fundación MEDIANOCHE0, © Kathleen Ryan. Courtesy the artist and Karma, Photo: Lance Brewer
Left: Bad Melon (Big Chunk), 2020 cherry quartz, agate, smoke quartz, Amazonite, jasper, aventurine, rhodonite, rhodonite, rhodochrosite, labradorite, quartz, Botswana agate, carneol, glass, cast iron and brass tiles, steel pins on coated polystyrene, aluminum Airstream. 96.5 x 124.5 x 157.5 cm Moore Family Collection, New York
Right: Bath Melon (Wedge), 2020 cherry quartz, rose quartz, agate, Amazonite, jasper, aventurine, rhodonite, rhodonite, rhodochrosite, labradorite, smoky quartz, quartz, Botswana agate, carneol, horn, citrine, acrylic, glass, cast iron and brass tiles, steel pins on coated polystyrene, aluminum Airstream. 116.84 x 101.6 x 106.68 cm Private collection
Installation view at the Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, 2020 © Kathleen Ryan. Courtesy the artist and Francois Ghebaly, Photo: Jeff McLane
