Kathleen Ryan

In the organizer's words:

With the exhibition KATHLEEN RYAN. Banquet, the Hamburger Kunsthalle presents the first museum presentation of the American artist Kathleen Ryan (*1984). A selection of around thirty sculptural works traces the development of her artistic practice from 2014 to the present day. In addition to existing works, some new works produced especially for the exhibition will also be shown. Kathleen Ryan's sculptures range in size from monumental to manageable. They consist of found, collected and reused materials from which she creates objects such as flowers, fruit, vegetables, jewelry, spider webs or even flocks of birds. The materials chosen by the artist are often at odds with the nature of the objects they represent: Grapes are cast from heavy concrete whereas necklaces are made from strung bowling balls, the shell of a melon is made from a dismantled Airstream camper van, towering neoclassical columns, on the other hand, are assembled from delicate slabs of glazed ceramic and the mold on the skin of a peach is meticulously recreated with hundreds of semi-precious stones. Her works evoke a mixture of wonder, humor and disgust, prompting us to reflect on wealth and waste, decadence and sexuality, and the cycle of consumption and life. Kathleen Ryan lives and works in New York. In 2020, she was awarded the Rosa Schapire Art Prize by the Freunde der Kunsthalle e. V. External curator: Jasper Sharp Assistant curator: Ifee Tack