HQ is often a sort of faux retail outlet continuously packaging and repackaging itself as a store that offers nothing to the conventional shopper. In this context, Wolfgang Ryan’s exhibition titled “Lamps” is an example of how an imitation boutique can challenge common opinion on the uselessness of artwork. In this exhibition of illuminated objects, the Artist reconfigures household lighting into post-apocalyptic assemblages that defy their original purpose while maintaining some of their original function. In this sense, the legitimacy of an artwork is called into question by suggesting the work may actually have a use. Similarly, the legitimacy of the retail outlet is called into question by the suggestion that it may actually be a gallery.

Each lamp object is the product of a process of imitation, or forgery. It is important to note that the object can be read as both a lamp and a sculpture but that the significance of both aspects of the object is compromised. In the end, the lamp is elevated in status and the sculpture is in turn degraded by the fact that it has been crossbred with a common object. The process of substitution becomes apparent once the lamp objects are actually located in context with their surroundings. A sculpture can now be inserted seamlessly into a space that once was reserved for a lamp. This substitution becomes even more complex when the lamp sculptures are installed in a gallery and the gallery itself is made to look like a lighting store. In the end, a gallery is substituted with a boutique, and the boutique has in turn substituted lamps with sculptures.

Of no less significance are the Wisconsin-born artist Wolfgang Ryan and his process of re-construction. Ryan, who studied film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looks at his work as the product of a post-apocalyptic effort to re-establish normalcy through the ad hoc fabrication of familiar objects. In a hypothetical world where none of our beloved objects of consumption are available, Ryan imagines that our culture will be continued through processes of fabrication. In this exhibition, he focuses on the lamp and how it’s form could live on, even after systems of industrial mass production have screeched to halt. Ryan imagines a world were lamp bases are fashioned from speaker frames and thermoses. The shades made from planters and the fringe from clothespins. The final result of the Artists’ theatrical approach is matched with the faux boutique of the gallery itself, making the entire exhibition a product of the perfect act of i llegitimacy.