Ryan Gander Los fantasmas tienen dientes? (Do ghosts have teeth?), 2024

Los fantasmas tienen dientes? (Do ghosts have teeth) is a giant black PVC balloon bearing the question “Do ghost have teeth?” in large white letters.

Human perception and cognition, the way humans navigate and perceive the world around them are recurring topics in Ryan Gander’s artistic practice. Gander’s works are focused on the playfulness and imagination of children, which is often more expansive and less restrictive than adult behavior, less encumbered by “reality”, facts and appearances.

Tapping into the theme of perception, the work represents the inquisitiveness of children who ask what more jaded grown-up minds often dismiss as non-sensical or illogical. The medium in which this sentence is conveyed, a huge balloon, draws on invokes the playfulness of childhood and draws on Gander’s use of children’s toys as symbols of their imaginative powers.

Installed in a way to block an entrance at the artist’s solo exhibition at Esther Schipper, Los fantasmas tienen dientes? (Do ghosts have teeth) raises the question of what the obstacle to enter the room is: The ball or our inability to engage with such feats of the imagination?