Gerard Byrne For example; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72
Gerard Byrne, For example ; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, video, 9′ 37”, loop, mute, 2011
For his exhibition at the Centre d’édition contemporaine in 2011 (05.04 – 07.16.2011), Gerard Byrne has presented a film referring to a 1971-72 piece by Richard Serra he had had access to in the parc of a private collection near London: Five Elevations. This film follows a series of researches on abstraction and minimalism, and among others a previous film installation, A thing is a hole in a thing it is not (videos, 2010). It has been produced and presented first at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, then at The Renaissance Society, Chicago, at Lismore Castle Arts, County Waterford, Ireland, and at the 2010 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. This movieis made up of several short films showing works from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum, which somehow represent the quintessence of American minimalism: with paintings and sculptures by Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris or Frank Stella. Reinstalled in the Eindhoven halls by Gerard Byrne, the works replay their presence in the museum. The camera records the works as well as the context: museum workers, photographs, cleaners, attendants and visitors. The shots result from large scanning or a back-and-forth between the surrounding space, the apparently insignificant details and the art works themselves, objectified as well. The shift in point of view operated by Gerard Byrne is recontextualized in the field of minimalism by Penelope Curtis in her essay A local address, in Tuxedo Junction (1960), about A thing is a hole in a thing it is not:
“This means that we are left with the possibility of thinking of Minimalism’s project as both romantic and classical; as a work of the imagination as well as of manufacturing; an idea as well as an object ; a dream as well as a result. It is also made clear, however, that Minimalism is not just about us, and our experience, but also about how other experiences are mediated for us, whether in text, voice or imagery.“1 Besides, the epigraph introducing the catalogue reads: “Assembled and edited by Gerard Byrne upon the achievements of the Minimalists and their critics.”2
In For example; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, the camera moves around Five Elevations. Through shots using a variety of standards of cinematic grammar, creating a subjective image of this complex sculpture. In the background, and without being the subject of the movie, the camera records simultaneously and partly a fashion shoot taken place here by coincidence. Despite this double setting, the work of Richard Serra remains the principal character of this fiction, although the confrontation with the fashion shoot transforms Five Elevations in a kind of “Stonehenge“, provoking a back-clash between these two temporal dimensions: eternity vs the ephemeral.
As in his previous works, Gerard Byrne puts the question of the historical or the artistic transmission of a well-known reality, media-covered, phenomenological, or more: iconic. He puts this reality to the proof of its recording or re-recording (film, photography), of its diffusion and its reception:
“The idea was to construct for each work a kind of self-awareness of being viewed. I am interested in how the camera tries to construct and elaborate those viewpoints in a filmic sense. I recall Beckett’s Film quoting our fellow Irishman Bishop Berkeley – “To be is to be perceived.”
Gerard Byrne, For example ; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, HD video, loop, color, mute, multimedia player (full HD), 20 copies, 2 A.P. and 2 H.C., numbered, dated et signed. Edition of the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, 2011
Gerard Byrne’s works have been exhibited at Centraal Museum Utrech (2020), Sessession, Vienna (2019), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2017), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2015), FRAC Pays de Loire, Nantes (2014), Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013). Gall (2015), FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (2014), Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2013), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2011), Lisson Gallery, London and New York (2017, 2013, 2009 and 2007). He has also exhibited his works at the Kunstverein, Düsseldorf (2007) and for the Irish Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). He has taken part in several group shows at Tate Britain, London (2006, 2010 and 2014), MUDAM, Luxembourg (2010), Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel (2010), Malmö Konsthall (2010) and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2010), as well as the Turin, Gwangju and Sydney Biennales (2008) and the Lyon Biennale (2007). He took part in the ILLUMInazioni exhibition for the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), The Art of Memory, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2012), Salon der Angst, Kunsthalle, Vienna (2012) and Trapping Lions in the Scottish Highlands, Aspen Art Museum (2912), at Curiosity, De Appel, Amsterdam (2012), The Persistence of Objects, Lismore Castle, for Out of Body, Out of Time, Out of Place, Skulptur Projekte 2017, Münster (2017) and at the Busan Biennale (2020).
1 Penelope Curtis, “A local address”, in Gerard Byrne, Tuxedo Junction, 1960, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Co Waterford, Ireland, 2010 2 Gerard Byrne, Tuxedo Junction, 1960, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Co Waterford, Irelande, 2010, flyleaf
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
