Working primarily with lens-based media, Gerard Byrne explores the paradoxical relationship between time and image. Looking at both highbrow and popular media, from the art press to men’s magazines, museum displays to commercial radio stations, Byrne meticulously documents and reconstructs the cultural ephemera of the last century. With deadpan humour, his works draw attention to the ways in which text, sound and image produce and transmit meaning, and how shifting contexts render this meaning impermanent. In particular his works have looked at the legacy of Modernism, evolving attitudes towards sexuality, and the move from collective sources of entertainment to the more fragmented media culture of the 21st Century. Never succumbing to nostalgia, Byrne’s analysis of the recent past and its mythologies tells us just as much about the present – how, far from being inevitable, the moment we live in is just one of a number of possible outcomes, and how alternative futures can live on through cultural artefacts.
Gerard Byrne lives and works in Dublin.
Gerard Byrne
Eighth beast, 2018
analogue silver gelatin print, edition 4 + 1AP
99 x 123 cm / 39 x 48.4 in framed
Gerard Byrne
Eighteenth beast, 2018
analogue silver gelatin print, edition 4 + 1AP
132.5 x 164 cm / 52.2 x 64.6 in framed
Gerard Byrne
First beast, 2018
analogue silver gelatin print, edition 4 + 1AP
60.5 x 74 cm / 23.8 x 29.1 in framed
Gerard Byrne
Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli – Film inside an Image, 2016
single channel film, back projection 17 minutes, continuous loop
Installation view, Secession, Vienna 2019, photo: Iris Ranzinger
Gerard Byrne
In Our Time, 2017
single channel film installation with 8 channel audio, unfixed duration
Installation view, Secession, Vienna 2019, photo: Iris Ranzinger
Gerard Byrne
A man and a woman make love, 2012
television production, variable loop of approximately 19 minutes
Installation at dOCUMENTA (13), 2012, Kassel
Gerard Byrne
Images or Shadows of Divine Things 1984_16_19, 2006,
selenium-toned silver gelatin print, edition of 4 + 1AP,
17 x 26 cm / 6.7 x 10.2 in image size
40.5 x 47.5 x 4.2 cm / 15.9 x 18.7 x 1.7 in framed
Gerard Byrne
Images or Shadows of Divine Things 1984_10_11, 2006,
selenium-toned silver gelatin print, edition of 4 + 1AP,
17 x 26 cm / 6.7 x 10.2 in image size
40.5 x 47.5 x 4.2 cm / 15.9 x 18.7 x 1.7 in framed
Gerard Byrne
Images or Shadows of Divine Things 1984_09_29, 2006
selenium-toned silver gelatin print, edition of 4 + 1AP,
17 x 26 cm / 6.7 x 10.2 in image size
40.5 x 47.5 x 4.2 cm / 15.9 x 18.7 x 1.7 in framed
Gerard Byrne
[title same as time since date of shooting in: years, months, weeks, days + "ago" (Shooting date 21.01.13)], 2014
silver gelatin print, unique
131 x 163.7 cm / 51.5 x 64.4 in
Gerard Byrne
1984 and Beyond, 2005–7
20 photographs, gelatin silver print on paper, vinyl wall text and video, high definition, 3 flat screens, colour and sound
Collection of TATE, London
Gerard Byrne
A country road, a tree, evening: Cruagh, on the road between Kilakee and Tibradden, Dublin Mountains, 2006
analog C-type colour photograph, edition of 5 + 1 AP
88 x 110 cm / 34.6 x 43.3 in
Gerard Byrne
New Sexual Lifestyles, 2003
three-channel video, seven photographs, edition of 3 + 2AP
duration: 54 minutes, dimensions variable
Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
Gerard Byrne
Why it’s time for Imperial, again, 1998-2002
single-channel video installation
duration: 23 minutes
Gerard Byrne
Subject, 2008
three channel work for monitors, and a vinyl wall text
duration: approximately 50 mins
Documenta 12, 2007
Gerard Byrne has had solo exhibitions in many of the world’s leading museums, including Kunstmuseum St Gallen, Switzerland; ACCA, Melbourne; Graz Museum, Austria; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Whitechapel Gallery, London and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon. In recent years, he has had solo exhibitions at Centraal Museum Utrecht (2020); Serlachius Museum Gosta, Finland; Void, Derry; Secession, Vienna (all 2019); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (both 2018) and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2017). He has participated in major international exhibitions including Skulptur Projekte, Documenta, Performa, the Tate Triennial, FRONT International Cleveland Triennial, the 52nd and 54th Venice biennales, and the Busan, Gwangju, Sydney, Auckland, Lyon and Istanbul biennales.
52nd Venice Biennale, 2007
Gerard Byrne
Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli (Film inside an image), 2024
Towner Eastbourne, UK
Photo: Rob Harris
Gerard Byrne
In Our Time, 2019
Serlachius Museum Gosta, Finland
Gerard Byrne
Upon all the living and the dead, 2019
Secession, Vienna
Gerard Byrne
In Our Time
Out of Body, Out of Time, Out of Place, Skulptur Projekte, 2017
Münster, Germany
©Skulptur Projekte. Photo: Henning Rogge
Gerard Byrne
A Late Evening in the Future, 2015
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland
Photo: Stefan Rohner
Gerard Byrne
A state of neutral pleasure, 2013
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK
Gerard Byrne
dOCUMENTA (13), 2012
Kassel, Germany
MUMA's latest video, Gerard Byrne: Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli (Film inside an Image)
Part of Art Exhibited series on Pi TV we went to Whitechapel gallery to look at the Gerard Byrne: A state of neutral pleasure. We also interviewed assistant curator Emily Butler about the exhibition.
Artist Gerard Byrne in conversation with Aidan Dunne, Journalist and Visual Arts Critic, The Irish Times. Filmed at the National Gallery of Ireland on 20 March 2014. Part of a special Anniversary Series organised by the NGI which featured a number of leading contemporary Irish artists discussing their work with a guest chair.
Artist Gerard Byrne talks about his exhibition 'Case Study: Loch Ness (Some possibilities and problems), 2001-2011' at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, from 14 January - 3 April 2011.
Gerard Byrne Artist Talk From The Renaissance Society
The exhibition On Television, Beckett is a project of the artist Gerard Byrne and the curator and Beckett expert Judith Wilkinson.
Gerard Byrne’s Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli – Film inside an image (2015–16) will be presented at Towner for the first time since it was acquired for the Towner Collection through Art Fund’s Moving Image Fund.
Gerard Byrne and Kathy Prendergast are both exhibited in Pruːf, a group exhibition curated by Sarah Pierce at the Library Project in Temple Bar.
Gerard Byrne's sculpture Construction V (based on Giacometti), 2006, is included in Le temps de Giacometti (1946–1966) at Les Abattoirs, Toulouse.
Works by Gerard Byrne, Willie Doherty & Paul Seawright are included in PhotoIreland 2022, the biggest ever edition of the annual photography exhibition.
![Gerard Byrne 
[title same as time since date of shooting in: years, months, weeks, days + "ago" (Shooting date 21.01.13)], 2014
silver gelatin print, unique
131 x 163.7 cm / 51.5 x 64.4 in
 ](https://img.artlogic.net/w_1800,h_1000,c_limit/exhibit-e/6026ca599b88566687556cb2/63a8ef7fce01aca10bfe9c57400c708d.jpeg)
![Gerard Byrne 
[title same as time since date of shooting in: years, months, weeks, days + "ago" (Shooting date 21.01.13)], 2014
silver gelatin print, unique
131 x 163.7 cm / 51.5 x 64.4 in
 ](https://img.artlogic.net/w_647,h_647,c_limit/exhibit-e/6026ca599b88566687556cb2/63a8ef7fce01aca10bfe9c57400c708d.jpeg)
