Note: This event was originally scheduled for March 13

The Wattis Institute is pleased to host a lecture by the London-based artist Ryan Gander, our spring Capp Street Project artist in residence and one of the featured artists in the Wattis's ongoing program The Magnificent Seven. Gander's idea-based practice appropriates elements from different disciplines -- from architecture to urbanism, design, or language -- to suggest narratives that defy artistic conventions and evade popular culture or personal experience. Loose Associations (2002) was an ongoing performance work that rapidly gained him international recognition. Taking the form of a lecture series, the piece allowed Gander to engage in verbal digressions through topics as diverse as "desire lines," furniture design, and Morse code. Puzzles also play a key role in Gander's practice. In recent years he has produced curios and complex works, for instance Bauhaus Revisited (2005), a chess set based on Joseph Hartwig's 1924 didactical redesign of the game.

Gander studied at Manchester Metropolitan University, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, and the Jan van Eyck Akademie. Recent projects include ILLUMInations at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale; Intervals at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Public Art Fund, New York. He has had recent solo shows at Dazaifu Tenmangu, Fukuoka, Japan; 1223 Gendaikaiga, Tokyo; YU-UN Viewing Room, Tokyo; Okinawa Prefectural Museum; and Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich. He recently published a monograph, Catalogue Raisonnable Vol: 1.

Founding support for CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts programs has been provided by Phyllis C. Wattis and Judy and Bill Timken. General support for the Wattis Institute provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Ann Hatch and Paul Discoe, and the CCA Curator's Forum.