A book that brings together 150 portraits of artists when they were "about" five years old.
The book aims to take a look at artists' before they had any realisation of their future selves, taking into account the innocence of childhood alongside Gander's preoccupations with the understanding of time, divergent historic potentials, "what-if" para-possible futures and the privilege of hindsight and retrospect.
Chronologically presented alongside a date and place in which the photograph was taken, we also see a history of photography across all continents. Starting from the early 20th century to the most recent generation of artists whose photographs were taken in the early 21st Century, we are able to see a progression in technology and attitudes toward the camera.
Ryan Gander has previously edited books such as
Artists' Cocktails (2013) and
The Annotated Reader (2018) which gather a range of important creatives under one title.
Artists at 5 includes artists such as Alexander Calder,
Anicka Yi,
Arthur Jafa,
Barbara Hepworth,
Ben Elliot,
Ceal Floyer,
Cindy Sherman,
Cornelia Parker,
Gabriel Kuri,
Gary Hume,
Holly Hendry,
KAWS,
Lawrence Weiner,
Marcel Broodthaers,
Marina Abramović,
Olafur Eliasson,
Prem Sahib,
Ragnar Kjartansson,
Richard Deacon,
Sarah Morris,
Stuart Middleton,
Susan Hiller,
Uri Aran, and
Wolfgang Tillmans.
Ryan Gander (born 1976 in Chester, UK, lives and works in Suffolk) has established an international reputation through artworks that materialise in many different forms—from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance and more besides. Through associative thought processes that connect the everyday and the esoteric, the overlooked and the commonplace. Gander's work involves a questioning of language and knowledge, as well as a reinvention of both the modes of appearance and the creation of an artwork. His work can be reminiscent of a puzzle, or a network with multiple connections and the fragments of an embedded story. It is ultimately a huge set of hidden clues to be deciphered, encouraging viewers to make their own associations and invent their own narrative in order to unravel the complexities staged by the artist.
