Installation views, Veronica Ryan: Retrieval, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, October 16 - November 22, 2025. © Veronica Ryan. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo: Steven Probert.
With their stringently white walls and harsh lighting, most galleries are inhospitable. So I noticed when I walked into Veronica Ryan’s show “Retrieval” that I immediately felt invited. Soft materials abound, including fabric poufs and doilies, and the many sculptures dotting the space are human scaled. The exhibition feels approachable.
Partly this is because Ryan uses found objects that any viewer can recognize, like water bottles; she may fill them with Himalayan salt and wrap them in crochet webbing or cast them in ceramic. But the sense of openness has just as much to do with the overall installation. Ryan groups objects as if they were having conversations, or places them in unexpected spots, as with two long pendants hanging in a corner near the entrance.
Her work may look easy, but its casualness is resolutely cultivated. The British artist, born in Montserrat, won the Turner Prize in 2022, at age 66, but had been working for decades beforehand without being widely known.
Many of the threads of her practice coalesce in “Archaeology of the Black Sun 1956-2002” (2003), an installation of hundreds of small objects hung across several walls. Some items — a tea strainer, say — are simply themselves. Others have been manipulated, like a leather cushion studded with nails or a baking dish stuffed with grimy, yellowing pads.
Some arrangements are funny; others feel totemic or mournful. “Archaeology” manifests a care born from attention, but also the type of vigilance that comes from need. It consists of the very basics of life, turned into poetry and mapped like a constellation.