Will Ryman

Tuesday Afternoon
November 8, 2007 - January 5, 2008
Reception: November 8, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Will Ryman
Marlborough Chelsea
545 W 25th St


The sidewalk: Man Collecting Cans, 2007
PVC pipe wire, resin acrylic paint, wood
129 x 92 x 48 in., 327.66 x 233.68 x 121.92 cm

Will Ryman
The Sidewalk: 3 Card Monty (2007)The Directors of Marlborough Gallery are pleased to announce the opening of of an exhibition of new work by the young American sculptor, Will Ryman. This exhibition will take place on the first floor of Marlborough's new Chelsea gallery, 545 West 25th Street, and it will be Ryman's first New York show with the gallery.


The Bed, 2007
Papier mache, magic sculpt, resin, acrylic, wire mesh, wood, cloth
96 x 180 x 330 in., 243.84 x 457.20 x 838.20 cm

The exhibition will show Ryman's most ambitious work to date. Entitled Tuesday Afternoon, it will be comprised of two installations which are conceptually interrelated as happening at a concurrent time on a particular day. Before devoting himself to sculpture Ryman, always interested in the theater of human emotions, wrote plays. In the installations at Marlborough he creates a setting in time, Tuesday afternoon, in a similar way that a playwright might structure a play. The first installation is entitled Bed; the second, The Sidewalk, and both works are made of mixed media materials - steel, paper mâché, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, PVC tubing, wire mesh, Styrofoam and wood.


The Sidewalk: Man with Umbrella, 2007
Aluminum, PVC pipe, copper, resin, acrylic paint, papier mache
55 x 48 x 48 in., 139.70 x 121.92 x 121.92 cm

As described by Edward Leffingwell in the essay of the exhibition catalog, “The monumental bed (15 x 27 x 8 feet) bisects the gallery in what amounts to middle distance. With one arm dangling from the bedside, the recumbent figure occupies a dream-filled moment just this side of waking. Ryman speaks of these yards of rumpled sheets as a landscape of rolling hills and mountains, telegraphing the installation's scale to the vernacular urban landscape of the sidewalk and the street. A floor lamp towers above a scattering of ale cans, a Moleskin journal and pen, some keys and a watch, a half-eaten bag of Doritos, cigarettes, matches, and slippers tucked neatly at a corner of the bed. An emblem of fidelity, a dog, rests at his side, tail raised in the laziest of wags. With the ominous presence of an alarm about to ring, a burning cigarette dangles from the dreamer's hand signaling the approaching interruption of his reverie where half asleep he awakens from the dream.

The Sidewalk is composed of twelve different groups of figures which are conceived in the artist's imagination as a slice of New York street life. The Sidewalk is positioned in the gallery to run parallel to its front windows, thus creating an echo of the sidewalk outside. According to Leffingwell, both works “are conceived as objects and ideas fixed in a single moment of stopped time, the bustling population of a side walk on an active urban street and a massive dreaming figure sprawled on a mass of tangled sheets.”

Ryman says his works “explore the bare bones of emotions, of human frailty, the bare bones of vulnerability, the rawness of psychology, and conditions that are human,” and he wants the viewer to see each piece as an act in a drama. He states his mission is to break subject matter down to its truest form, and he wants to do that with emotions and relationships. As he puts it, “I am trying to turn the conditions within us into the three dimensional.”

Commenting on that motive Leffingwell concludes his essay by saying, Ryman's “tableaux venture beyond the theatrical and performative, their stilled activity eliciting the capacity for discovery and surprise, the impetus to look and the capability to recognize a common humanity.”

Before joining Marlborough Ryman had five solo shows: two in New York, one in Seattle and two in Munich. From 1990 to 2001 he studied writing in various workshops and wrote two plays and thirty one-act plays. Since 2001 he has devoted himself completely to sculpture. He lives and works in New York City.