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I ran into Dan Flavin the other day. He was hanging with Kenneth Noland and Donald Judd in the same gallery as me. I stopped and exchanged niceties: Dan was very warm, Kenneth a little straight, and Donald kept repeating himself. We talked about Australian art and Giles Ryder’s recent show ‘Lightworks’. They all said it looked familiar to them but also somehow different. I agreed.
Assisted readymades of found neon assembled on horizontal and vertical monochromatic surfaces, straight monochromes with highly reflective surfaces, fluoro window tints, stereo paintings and above all the pervasive glow of light, Ryder’s Lightworks was at once a trip down memory lane and a brave step forward. Giles Ryder has seen it all before, and so have we. So it is no surprise that his work looks a lot like a lot of other things: everything from early European modernism to American abstraction, to our very own conceptual post-modernism. The difference between the work he resembles and the work he produces is one of attitude.
While there is an extensive art historical ancestry to Ryder’s neon lights, stripe paintings and reflective monochromes, the distinction is to be found in the way he handles these surfaces and intends them to be seen. Not just in terms of their technical application—although Ryder’s history as an industrial painter is of particular note—but also in the way these surfaces are influenced by, and influence, their surroundings. Ryder actually paints and hand-rolls these lustrous machine-finished panels himself instead of outsourcing, thus the work embodies more of the authorship of expressionism than the objecthood of minimalism (although occasionally the demands of the work do necessitate industrial assistance). Perhaps this craftsmanship accounts