downstairs , and I don ’ t know what ’ s upstairs . So I imagine what would be there . Spending your entire life envisaging things that are inaccessible to you is like taking your imagination to the gym .
And then when you think about my work and about the flak that I get for being inaccessible or elitist –– it ’ s because there ’ s always something missing or covered or negated or latent . But the beauty of that lies in the spectator ’ s need to imagine . Enabling people to imagine is a gift as valuable as education .
FULLERTON For “ Night in the Museum ,” the exhibition that you selected from the UK Arts Council Collection , you explored the theme of spectatorship further , positioning figurative sculptures in front of abstract works containing the color blue .
GANDER When the exhibition was at the gallery in Yorkshire Sculpture Park , a lady came over to me and said , “ I keep saying ‘ sorry ’ to all these sculptures . I walk in front of one and think it ’ s a person .” I liked that . I ’ d not thought of it but when we tried it , we really felt like we were disrupting a gaze . It ’ s strange how much power you can create with inanimate eyes made with bronze or plastic .
FULLERTON Your curatorial strategy generated unanticipated associations between the pairs . What is the significance of the color blue for you ? Could it equally have been red ?
GANDER Blue , historically , in color theory and popular culture , is often associated with an optimistic unknown . It ’ s about exploration , it ’ s about an abyss that is not empty , something that is full but you can ’ t see what it is . It ’ s an absence , but you are given the possibility to imagine what is absent . So I guess all my work should be blue .
If your TV loses its signal , the screen goes blue –– it encompasses every possibility of everything that could be shown on TV . When you look into the sea , the blue is the depth . When you look into the sky , the blue is the depth . Blue is important .
FULLERTON The starting point for “ Night in the Museum ” came from your ongoing series of artworks that couple one of your bronze versions of Degas ’ s famous ballerina with a blue cube , which is intended as a cartoonish emblem of modern art . You have freed the girl from her plinth and shown her smoking a cigarette or lying
As old as time itself , slept alone , 2016
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