Meaning Is All Around Me Now

Abstraction, photography, collage and the examination of the artistic process underpin this selection of works from the Zabludowicz Collection. It includes artists based in the UK and US as well as those from Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, France and Mexico, yet geography is not a defining feature for these artists – it is their inquisitive and probing practice that joins them across continents and art history. All of them take the performance of their everyday artistic practice as a time-based and context-specific act as the start point, and in some cases end point, of their work. In almost every case the viewer cannot be a passive receiver of an image but must take on the job as a researcher or detective forging links between the references displayed before them in order to make the work mean something more than simple composition. The trap of art history is set with references – from the Bauhaus to Las Vegas, there is always something that even the uninitiated viewer can find intrigue in, allowing entrance to a labyrinth of meaning within the artwork.
This is the first time that Ryan Gander's Associative Photograph series from 2004 has been seen in its entirety. Only one full set of these photographs remains intact, and this is held by the Zabludowicz Collection. The title, Meaning is all around me now, is drawn from another work by Gander, produced as a limited edition 3D viewfinder and depicting the Didactease, an emblem using advanced mathematical symbols to produce the sentence 'There exists only one definition for everything, everywhere at any one time' that Gander uses repeatedly in his work, which sets out to expose and explore the intricacies of understanding, belief and ultimately the possibility of artistic endeavour today. Gander's multifaceted practice sets the ground for this curated display of works from the Zabludowicz Collection.