Member-only story
Why Some Art Needs Explaining
And in language that doesn’t leave you scratching your head
I recently watched a video featuring the British conceptual artist Ryan Gander. He was talking about his art and the ideas he’s interested in exploring in his work. Gander is really engaging. He’s brimming with ideas. And he’s quite provocative in the statements he makes about art.
Conceptual art is a category of art that turns some people right off because it can sometimes be quite hard to get a handle on what it’s all about. The value of conceptual art is in the concept or the idea rather than in the aesthetics of the art. Any sort of demonstration of artistic skill from the artist is not necessary. The hand of the artist is not important. But it can be hard to separate those two aspects of an artwork when you’re standing in front of it looking for something to grab you and you’re not sure what the idea is.
Gander talks about how he values the process rather than the outcome, what he calls ‘the journey in the taxi rather than the taxi receipt’. Often I find his taxi receipts don’t…
