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Gerard Byrne

Born 1969, Dublin, Ireland. Lives and works in Dublin.

Gerard Byrne's film and photographic installations engage us with the recent past, often to describe a 'future' sensibility. Using source material ranging from interviews with philosophers through to lifestyle magazines of the 1960s and 1970s, Byrne restages scenarios using actors and events alienated from both their original period and our own. His interest in the technique of 'defamiliarisation' through imagery poses questions to the viewer, and forces an active engagement with the work. In Byrne's works, even documentary material appears mysteriously composed and fictionalised.

Gerard Byrne recognises "that the properties of film and photography – such as framing and light – can be as expressive of time and place as their subjects. In this way he plays with our sense of period and context, fashioning work that we can never be exactly sure of." His new project Case Study: Loch Ness, Some possibilities and problems, 2001–10, begins with the legend of the Loch Ness monster. Combining film, text and photography, the installation invites us to consider the status of myth and reality in the advance of new media. Byrne has a vigorous record of international exhibition making. In 2007, he represented Ireland at the 52nd Venice Biennale and his recent group exhibitions include: Slow Movement, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, 2009; the 7th Gwangju Biennial, South Korea, 2008; 50 Moons of Saturn, the Torino Triennale, Italy, 2008; and Revolutions: Forms that Turn, the 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2008. He had his first major solo exhibition in North America, Momentum 12, at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA in 2008.

Venue: Auckland Art Gallery