'Stories Written' featuring Ryan Gander and Haroon Mirza at Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, CH

6 June 2024

From 30 May – 8 September 2024, Museum Haus Konstruktiv presents 'Stories Written – Zurich Art Prize Winners 2007–2023' featuring artists Ryan Gander and Haroon Mirza. This group show presents selected works by 14 previous winners of the renowned Zurich Art Prize from the years 2007 to 2023 and offers a refreshing overview – not only of contemporary art in Switzerland and abroad, but also of approaches to incorporating the history of constructivist-concrete and conceptual art.

Ryan Gander (born in 1976 in Chester, UK, lives and works in London) presents his installation Something that ‘is’ versus something that ‘occurs’ (2023). It features a locker system made of transparent acrylic glass that reveals the objects enclosed within: backpacks, paper bags, sunglasses, coffee mugs, items of clothing, and care products. Notions of singularity, randomness and privacy associated with depositing personal belongings in a locker are thoroughly undermined in this installation. To no small extent, the things on display invite observers to imagine the lives of their fictitious owners.

Haroon Mirza (born in 1977 in London, where he also lives and works) operates in an installation-based, experimental manner. By means of light, sound and/or video, he creates unusual perceptual experiences, for which he uses older technical equipment, such as cassette recorders or record players, as well as solar cells or state-of-the-art computer systems. He is represented at Haus Konstruktiv by two wall-mounted pieces from the series Light Works (2012–2023). These are drawings made using red, green and blue LED strips, whose electromagnetic waves combine within the space to form white light. The lengths of the strips are derived from their respective radiance, or the ratio between the RGB colors’ intensities. The drawings in red, green and blue are arranged here with a size ratio of 1:3:6. Cables and copper bands interconnect the individual strips and create a closed circuit, in a deliberately reduced language of forms.

'Stories Written' at Museum Haus Konstruktiv runs from 30 May – 8 September 2024.

Find out further information via Museum Haus Konstruktiv.