Exhibition Copy: Ryan Gander, Spaces to Exhale

The eight soft toys displayed in the six windows along Lowrie Street are from a series called “Spaces to Exhale”, made by artist Ryan Gander. Each sculpture depicts a different fictional artist, invented by Gander, under which he has worked over the last 20 years. The toys are purposely soiled and worn out, and are positioned slumped as if discarded, or lost by a child.

Ryan Gander is a British artist who produces extremely varied artworks from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance, among others. This project challenges self-image and ego, pushing past the concerns of a sole individual maker into an imagined community of artists and their invented worlds. Gander is often focused on the playfulness and imagination of children, which he considers more expansive and less restrictive than adult behavior. 

Exhibition Copy

A series of solo exhibitions.

By seven internationally renowned artists.

In six uncommon locations.

 Along the same street.

February 2024 - April 2025

LOUISE BOURGEOIS - February / March 2024

ROMAN ONDAK - April / May 2024

ROULA PARTHENIOU - June / July 2024

IMIN YEH - August / September 2024

LYNDON BARROIS JR. - October / November 2024

RYAN GANDER - December - February 2024 - 2025

MARTIN CREED - March / April 2025

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Exhibition Copy is a rotating series of solo shows by seven artists.

Each artist is invited to respond to the idea of the exhibition copy, a term often referring to a duplicate of an artwork fabricated because of a lending artist or institution’s reluctance to put an original work at risk.

Exhibition Copy also copies an exhibition space as Gallery Closed is multiplied into adjacent homes and businesses along a half-mile length of Lowrie Street.

Each exhibition will take place simultaneously in the public facing windows of six Lowrie Street locations. The venues include; Gallery Closed, a former beauty salon, a public notary office, Ron’s Pizza Palace, a private home and an elementary school. Each artist’s project will be exhibited for two months in all six locations, at the same time.  

This exhibition series invites seven artists to interrogate ideas of authorship and the original by using the exhibition copy as a means for expanding the experience of a single artwork across multiple sites and contextual shifts.

Curated by Jon Rubin, Phillip Andrew Lewis, and Lenka Clayton