In the next of our films exploring the work of artists featured in Good Grief, Charlie Brown! we examine the practice of British artist Ryan Gander. Peanuts has always been an inspiration to Gander, mainly because of the way it presents failures: "The work of Schulz means a great deal to me as it's one of the very few narrative styles that encompasses failure and regret. In a world of Hollywood blockbuster endings, it's refreshing to see non-idealised narrative rendered in idealised styles".
Ryan Gander has produced a series of new works for the exhibition that explore his relationship with Schulz's comic, presented alongside existing works.
His new film Dancing with my own agencies (The world will adjust to you), 2018, is a reconfigured documentary that he presented for the BBC in 2017. By imitating the same drawing effects Schulz used for Pigpen, Gander highlights how, in a time when the presentation of the self in everyday media has to be relentlessly idealised through selfie making and social media, it is refreshing and endearing to be reminded of our human fragility and vulnerabilities. As Gander says, "All the work of Schulz does this for me through the strength, power and humility and ability to show the self in all its awkwardness."
Gander has also looked to Linus for inspiration in the past, and his work Linus Van Pelt and a world of Endeavour, Ambition and Optimism, 2008, takes Linus's iconic 'security blanket' as its central focus. The work features a baby blue crocheted blanket with silk blue edging hanging on a wall-mounted coat hook, above a brown paper lunch bag that has been left on the floor. Printed on the wall behind is a sequential pattern fo every shape made by Linus's mouth during the high school president election speech from the Peanuts TV special You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. Gander says that using his speech highlights the danger of the real world: "The scene shows the fear and anxiety that any real person would encounter in such a public situation, not something that is usually played out in comic fiction".
"The blanket is a signifier of Linus's insecurities; it renders him as vulnerable as every other human being, not just a flat, singular-dimension cut-out character"
Gander's new work for the exhibition includes Swansong, 2018, an oversized remake of Charlie Brown's red kite. This has become tangled in our iconic SKATE sign above our annual ice rink. Charlie Brown's attempts to fly a kite always resulted in failure, usually due to his nemesis the Kite-Eating Tree. Out of many, one, 2018, is a new winter flag for the roof of Somerset House, drawn by the artist's four-year old daughter. It depicts a familiar generic cartoon landscape: an idealised green grass with a blue sky within which floats an empty thought bubble. With all the details left blank, you are left to project your own thoughts and idealised realities on to the scene. Gander's flag therefore comes to represent the mulitplicity of human opinions and values, a space where we can perhaps converse and find some common ground.
