Patrick Ward

Installation view of “This Is It”, Weimar

Installation view of “This Is It”, Ljubljana

“There is a good chance (guaranteed, in fact, by aspects of Ward’s work) that we will not see or hear everything. A neon sign announces, “This is it”. Ward’s piece is viewed (if at all) from a window: it is ‘outside’ and we might well miss noticing it. Only a discreet label on the window frame – ‘inside’ – identifies it. The work exists both within and without, but on different terms, not here or there. And, however unambiguous a statement as “This is it” might appear to be, what is actually being signified is anything but. At its most basic, of course, the sign refers to itself, but it also seems to refer to something else from which it is now detached. In Freudian terms, we might regard This is it as a ‘partial object’. This is not to say that it should be thought of as a constituent part of a ‘whole’ from which it has been removed, but rather as something that resists its inclusion within that ‘whole’. Rather than being subordinate to a referent, the sign is beyond this and that.”

—Sam Gathercole