Artworks

Ink on paper (high pigment printing) / Kağıt üzeri mürekkep (yüksek pigment baskı) /

In a doubling of reality and almost without text, Ersan Mondtag's play “De Living” tells a private story of despair that is intertwined with a historical one.

The suicide of a woman in her kitchen is also a story about the liberation from the trauma caused by the atrocious regime of the Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo. The events leading up to the moment when the lonely woman sticks her head into the gas stove developed with the twins Doris and Nathalie Bokongo Nkumu into an unfolding of history in parallel universes.

The synchronicity of their imprisonment in fear and depression dissolves into two possible outcomes in the course of the performance. One fatal and one optimistic. In addition to the systematic mirroring and the breaking of patterns, the use of smells is an impressive artistic effect, olfactorily guiding the reception of this silent double story.

A Wassily Model B3 chair designed in 1926 by Marcel Breuer, up ended onto its front, on top of which cast marble sits representing several inches of settled snowfall.

Laser-cut stainless steel

Ink on engraving textured paper

Three revolving postcard racks which, when viewed from certain angles, form three complete images from the multiple postcards they display; showing two artworks and a portrait of Santo Sterne.

Elle şekil verilmiş ve sırlı stoneware seramik, altın tozu / Hand modeled and glazed stoneware, gold luster

Tuval üzerine yağlı boya / Oil on canvas

What will the world look like in the future if social and technological developments progress as rapidly as they have in recent decades?

When artificial intelligence has left human intelligence behind and dominates all areas of life? What will become of humans - these unpredictable, flawed, slow and sentimental beings?

Sibylle Berg's play WONDERLAND AVE. is set in a museum of humanity, a memorial to the once dominant species, whose physicality is now primarily preserved in paintings, photo installations and sculptures. Sometimes naked and carnal as in Ron Mueck's work, sometimes renaissance-like and damned as in a fall from hell.

In this bitter and comical swan song to humanity, five robots that could have come straight out of a Picasso painting control two pathetic specimens who reflect one last time on what has gone wrong with their world, in which they felt so selfrighteously in control.

Laser-cut Corten steel and stained windows

Oil on canvas

A wall-mounted postcard rack displaying multiple postcards which create an image of the fictional artist, Aston Ernest, as a child.

Oil on canvas

The starting point for Mondtag’s production was a myth about Maria Callas. To achieve her dream figure, the world famous opera singer is said to have ingested a tapeworm with a glass of champagne. The legend claims that the parasite led to an astonishing weight loss of 50 kilograms
within a short period of time.

Callas’ uncompromising endeavours to shape her appearance according to her ideal vision, and its flipside - the dissolution of her own body - formed the leitmotifs of the exhibition.

A scenic parcours transformed the museum into a stage with winding paths to encounter bordercrossers and doppelgangers, silent rebels and failed existences.

The tapeworm-stage presented works from Kader Attia, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, On Kawara, Teresa Margolles, Bruce Nauman, Thomas Ruff, Rosemarie Trockel, Andy Warhol and many others as connected parts of an ongoing narration about irritated bodies.

«Old-gold» luster on red glazed high fired stoneware, signed, dated, titled in the mass

Used sump oil, steel

Oil on canvas

Glazed stoneware

A fortune-cookie slip revealing a catalytic point of departure for an action yet to be undertaken concealed from view within a painting constructed from white-washed broken glass sheets and black duct tape.

Oil on canvas

In the dark forest the muezzin calls, the father returns home with the ax and goes into the cellar, a very fat girl shakes the house with her defiant stomping.

In “Tyrannis” by Ersan Mondtag there is always a fairytale atmosphere, but of the eerie kind. The red-haired family with their avatar movements, which can be observed via surveillance cameras in their rooms and live in a strange kitchen-living room like in a human zoo, does not speak, lives according to fixed rules rituals and hides secrets. Have terrible things happened in the past or are the zombie-like souls of single-family homes just waiting to happen? Associations with horror films and computer games, David Lynch and the Brothers Grimm, but also with the narrow middle class à la Fassbinder and Christoph Marthaler's bashful staff arise when patiently contemplating Mondtag's room world dreams.

The powerful imagery creates an intimate horror of everyday life in an enchantingly stubborn atmosphere.

Ink on engraving textured paper/ Gravür dokulu kağıt üzeri mürekkep

The Green and the Gardens, 2019, focused on a holistic need for a communal and public shared space. As such, Gander worked directly with the commissioners chosen landscape architects, Gillespies, to create a space that included rain gardens to ensure a natural drainage system, wildflowers to increase biodiversity and intimate spaces for groups to relax, escape and find inspiration. The artistic elements mimicked the common groups of England’s villages, featuring a series of highly realistic fibreglass sculptures of tents positioned in the landscape that lit up during the night, as well as fences, a gateway, a stile and a communal notice board.

Tuval Üzerine Yağlı Boya / Oil on canvas

Majolica stains on mat and shiny white glaze, high fired stoneware

Mor sırlı stoneware seramik, altın cila / Purple glazed stoneware, gold luster

69 pieces of steel blades/ 69 adet çelik bıçak

Tuval Üzerine Yağlı Boya / Oil on canvas

A life-size replica of a helium filled balloon that appears to be floating against the ceiling of the gallery. The balloon is in fact made from fibreglass and finished in a high gloss black colour.

Sırlı stoneware seramik, gümüş / Glazed stoneware, silver

Tuval üzerine yağlı boya / Oil on canvas

A giant, swollen, mirror-finish stainless steel version of 'Rapport de volumes' (1919) by Georges Vantongerloo in a crater as if crash landed.

Tuval üzerine yağlı boya / Oil on canvas

Glazed stoneware, silver

A life-size figure upscaled from an animator's movable desktop armature. The figure stands in front on ann illuminated rectangle hung on a wall as if looking at a painting in a gallery.

Sırlı seramik, altın parlaklığı/ Glazed stoneware, gold luster

OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A MODERN REPRESENTATION OF HOW A CONTEMPORARY GESTURE CAME INTO BEING, AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PHYSICALlITY OF AN ARGUMENT BETWEEN THEO AND PIET REGARDING THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF THE DIAGONAL LINE AND ATTEMPTING TO PRODUCE A CHROMA-KEY SET FOR A HUNDRED CINEMATIC SCENES, 2010

The gallery space is entirely covered by hundreds of simple matt black arrows all of which seem to have been shot from the side of the gallery that faces the most commonly used entrance. The arrows randomly penetrate the walls and floor, protruding into the gallery space at various angles and depths.

A marble sculpture representing a den / simple shelter made by the artist's 3 year old daughter using a full size Rietveld Cargo chair and smaller Rietveld Cargo chair designed for children.

Glazed stoneware, reduction firing

Engobes, glaze on modelled high fired stoneware
Signed in full 2016 but finished 2017 and titled in the mass, situated “Den Haag”, “eagle” stamp

A large sphere made up of thousands of unidentifiable shiny stainless steel components of various sizes and shapes, the distribution of which has been decided using magnetic forces.

Rendered in cast bronze and taking the form of large-scale key chains of a ballet dancer, a model of a school, and an architectural tetrapod, the sculptures are suspended improbably from the trees of Laguna Gloria. Gander, a consummate storyteller but intentionally unreliable narrator, describes his use of the key chain as a simple “vessel for communicating something of greater value, a signifier for the story.”

Part of an ongoing series of works, the key chain shapes are based on those employed in performances by Earnest Hawker, a persona of Gander’s future self. These sentimental objects suggest narratives, snippets of which come from the artist’s history and biography, while the viewer projects his or her own meanings, sparked by the works’ incongruous scale and placement. Chronologies and realities conflate, spinning with possibilities: How did these get here? Are they larger, or am I smaller? This playful interrogation of the viewer forms the nexus of Gander’s work.

Gold plated bronze

Three winding steps leading to a shape resembling a door set against the gallery wall, emitting a bright glow of white light.

Patinated bronze, lost wax casting

A series of sculptures permanently installed at Elephant Park consist of three pairs of sculptures based on working with these schools to create a figurative sculpture dressed in an amalgamation of clothes of their own choosing, as opposed to clothes suggested by function or social convention; and an abstract sculpture based on a discussion-led workshop with Ryan Gander at the end of 2021. Installing each school’s figurative sculpture and abstract sculpture together, each sculptural pair has a unique interaction between figure and sculpture, based on the artist’s interpretation and class discussion.

This project that has been developed in partnership with the South London Gallery and the Contemporary Art Society. The final works are all co-authored with a selection of Year 4 / KS2 (8-9 year old) pupils from three Southwark primary schools (Robert Browning, Charlotte Sharman and Crampton Primary) — all schools in the local vicinity of Elephant Park.

Permenantly installed in Elephant and Castle London, UK.

A 1:1 scale sculpture of a form called a Dolos, originally designed to act as a beach defence against coastal erosion, recreated in low carbon concrete. A computer model of the Dolos was treated with an algorithm that simulates snowfall. The mass of snow that accumulated on the Dolos was then subtracted from the mass of the original form, leaving a seemingly half finished or eroded sculpture, which can only be completed with the addition of snow in the real world.

Glazed terracotta in two elements placed on old sofa and two armchairs

Three polished stainless steel sculptures initially conceived by the artist's father when he worked at General Motors in the 1980s, and based on parts of the steering mechanism of a commercial Bedford truck, re-imagined by the artist from his father’s verbal description. Each piece represents a chess piece (two Kings and one Queen) and are positioned in a "checkmate" situation, yet due to the fact that all three are identical in colour and finish, it is impossible to tell which piece is the one in checkmate and which piece is on which side.

A concrete resin sculpture, commissioned by the Public Art Fund for Central Park, New York City (USA), of the ruin of the fictional statue The Happy Prince – as interpreted by the artist from the final chapter of the children’s book The Happy Prince (1888) by Oscar Wilde.

Hundreds of thousands of coins consisting of three different designs, freely distributed in a public context to be found or discovered at free will by the entire population of a city or region. The coins have been designed to act both as lucky charms, to remind the finder of the value of time and attention as opposed to solely money, but also to act as a decision making tool that can be utilised to assist with choice and spontaneity. The three coins are based on three different themes.: Pause and Action, Together and Solo, as well as Speak and Listen. In addition, the coins carry mottos within their designs, such as ‘Time is your greatest asset’ and ‘Let the world take a turn’, both of which are often repeated by the artist's father, highlighting the dichotomy and value between doing and not doing, a true exercise in agency and change.