Born in 1969 in Dublin where he lives and works.

 

Gerard Byrne makes video, photography and performance art. His multi-media installations reenact historic events using professional actors and theatrical techniques, using twentieth-century literature and mass media as source material. Byrne’s dramatic reenactments have included a conversation led by André Breton published in La Révolution surréaliste in 1929 (A Man and a Woman Make Love), a 1964 radio conversation on Minimalism (A thing is a hole in a thing it is not, 2010) and a 1980 Chrysler ad featuring Frank Sinatra (Why It’s Time For Imperial, Again, 2002). In New Sexual Lifestyles (2003) and 1984 and beyond (2005- 07), the transcripts of Playboy interviews from the ‘60s and ‘70s become scripts that are restaged with period costumes and settings. The critical importance of context is highlighted by these dramatisations, drawing our attention to shifts in societal attitudes.

 

2016: Mead Galery, Warwick Arts Centre, UK; 2015: GrazMuseum, Austria; Kunstmuseum St Gallen, Switzerland; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; 2013:The Whitechapel Gallery, London; 2012: dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; 2011: the 54th Venice Biennale; IMMA, Dublin; Milton Keynes Gallery; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; 2010:Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland; The Common Guild, Glasgow; 2008: ICA Boston; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; 2007: He represented Ireland at the 52nd Venice Biennale; Dusseldorf Kunstverein; 2006: Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius; 2004: MUMOK, Vienna; BAK.

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