Rainer Ganahl (b. 1961, Bludenz, Austria) is a conceptual artist whose work is based on the documentation, in photographs, video, performance, and other formats, of processes of learning. Sometimes he documents existing situations, as in his S/L series, where he attends and photographs seminars and lectures by leading scholars. He also creates his own educational environments, as in his Libraries, which are collections of scholarly books, intended to be perused by gallery visitors; and in his Readings, where he photographs and/or videotapes invited participants as they analyze theoretical texts with him. Ganahl also examines the processes and mechanics of education. His Studies are portraits of himself as a learning machine, documenting his efforts to study new languages; and his Dialogs, undertaken as either interviews or collaborations that explore cultural differences, engage with learning as a process outside educational or quasi-educational institutions.
SmartSpaces presented Rainer Ganahl’s Bicycling Broadway (2006) in the Borderland exhibition in the windows of 420 Broome Street, New York City.
Ganahl is an alumni of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York, NY, and the Art Academy of Dusseldorf. He has exhibited widely, including at the Venice Biennial (1999, 2007, 2009) and at the Shanghai, Athens, Sevilla and Gwangju Biennials. He has had solo gallery exhibitions at Kai Matsumiya, New York, NY (2017, 2016, 2015), Barbara Weiss, Berlin (2017), Alex Zachary, New York, NY (2010), Paul Pettro, Toronto, (2000, 2004, 2008, 2018), Levy Delval, Brussels (2009, 2010, 2013) among others. Earlier solo gallery shows include those at Massimo de Carlo, Milan; Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, CA; Philomene Magers, Cologne; Nordanstad-Skarstedt, New York, NY; Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, Paris; Galerie Roger Pailhas, Marseille; Max Protetch, New York, NY; and Galerie Nächst St. Stephan. Ganahl has had solo institutional exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art; Person’s Weekend Museum, Tokyo; White Columns, New York, NY; Wallach Gallery at Columbia University, New York, NY; Kunsthaus Bregenz ;Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; MAK Vienna; and the Fashion Space Gallery, University of the Arts London. He lives and works in New York City.
- Project: Borderland
- Artist Website: http://www.ganahl.info