Masterclass Gerard Byrne

DAI students Emily Williams, Nikos Doulos, Chris Meighan and Julien Grossmann will join this masterclass by Gerard Byrne.



Proposal Gerard Byrne

Lineage, Perception, and Praxis

Lets begin with a question: What makes Masters Level education different to under-graduate education? Among the differences I would point to, is a difference of emphasis in the types of discussions that surround what's happening in the studio. At undergraduate level, there is a pre-occupation with the singular mechanics of making an artwork from the beginning. At this level the questions are how to decide on materials? what skills are needed to work with those materials? and how does the work made assert it's status as art? At Masters level, while these questions persist, there is an increasing awareness of how artworks are understood within a critical context, and how students begin to affirm a position for their studio practices within their perceived idea of the spectrum of contemporary art. This new emphasis on perceived critical positions tends to gather momentum relentlessly throughout the course of the Masters programme, reaching a cresendo in the supposed 'statement' of the final exhibition.

Such an experience of Masters programs is fairly universal given that most Masters programs are based on similar models. Unfortunately the mapping out of the spectrum of contemporary art practices and the students jostling for artistic positions within that perceived spectrum, is a process that is often masked, or at best, only partially discussed, within the programs themselves.

The purpose of this workshop is to address this process directly through condensing it into a singular direct process. The aim of the workshop is not to reach a conclusion as to the future artistic prospects or positions of the student participants. Rather the aim of the workshop is to gently introduce the students to the process in a non-challenging context where we can discuss issues like how an artist positions their practice in relation to the practices of others, how an artists practice is perceived by others, and how an artist can imagine a practice that's sustainable beyond the present moment.

Day One:

 

The masterclass begins with a presentation by me in which I try to mark out in a critically frank manner a sense of my own practice as understood in relation to others: What is my sense of the artistic lineage for my work? What is my sense of how my work is understood by others? How do I see my practice as being sustainable in the future given the context within which it currently operates? This introduction will be completed by a critical response from workshop participants, in which they might propose alternative perceptions of where my work fits in to their sense of the spectrum of artistic practices.

During the afternoon of day one, students will each present one or two representative examples of their work to the group through some visual form - either through documentation or actual spatial presentation. Although the work should be presented in a form that allows for it to be fully comprehended, at this point participants will not be asked to verbally contextualise the work. Participants will instead be asked to make notes on the presentations of each of the other participants. The notes should address the following questions:

What is the artistic lineage of this work?

How is this work understood by others?

How is this practice sustainable given the context within which it opperates?

Day Two:

I will work with participants to individually develop presentations which respond to the issues of context and perception characterised in the questions above. Our meetings will focus on each participants perceived sense of the trajectory of their own work, as well as formulating notes on the practices of each of their peers within the group. Presentations can take any form - either a live lecture, a fixed display of work related materials, or a video based presentation. The focus of the presentations will be on how participants contextualise their practices as a whole, in the context of the history of related practices, and in the broader context of contemporary art practices. Students should also discus the future prospects for their practices in terms of critical reception

Day Three:

In the morning participants will begin their presentations. After each presentation, the group will collectively feedback, - responding by affirming and / or critiquing the appropriateness of the contextualisation provided by each participant in their presentation. Each participant will contribute to each others presentation by feeding back their sense of the the trajectory of the work based on the notes they've formulated on day 2. The masterclass will conclude after the final presentations with a general summary discussion of the issues that have emerged from the exercise.

As stated above, the hope is that by condensing into a benign workshop situation the complex and at times quite abstract process of artistic positioning that pervades M.A. programs, students can more comfortably address the process within their experience of Masters program education.

Bio and CV
Gerard Byrne (b.1969) is a visual artist working primarily with photographic and video based media. His work has been shown internationally at international biennials and museums including the 3rd Tate Triennial (2006) the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003), the Whitney Museum of American Art (2003), New York, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2005) and MUMOK, Vienna (2006). Major solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2003), and the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2002) and in 2007 major solo shows of his work will be presented in the Kunstverein Dusseldorf and at the Irish Pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2009 Gerard Byrne, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland.
2008 Chisenhale Gallery. London, U.K.
2007 Gerard Byrne, Kunstverein, Dusseldorf, Germany. Gerard Byrne, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland. Lisson Gallery, London, England. Irish Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, U.K. travelling to Charles Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada. Model Arts : Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland.
2005 Gerard Byrne, Void Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland?Beaumont Public Project Space, Luxembourg.
2004 Homme à Femmes, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.*Homme à Femmes, Present Future,[Green On Red Gallery], Artissima, Turin*In Repertory, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland.*A country road. A tree. Evening., Bak, Utrecht, Netherlands.
2003 Gerard Byrne, Nicola Fornello, Prato, Italy.*Gerard Byrne, Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany.
2002 Herald or Press,Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.*Gerard Byrne, Limerick City Gallery, Limerick, Ireland.?In the news, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.
2001 A crime dramatically reconstructed again, Meeting House Square, Dublin, Ireland.?Theater, Galeri T-19, Vienna, Austria.
1999 Theatre-Bunker-Archive-Reception Area, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.
1996 Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
1994 City Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
1993 Galeria Monumental, Lisbon, Portugal.
1992 Musee du Pilori, Niort, France.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2007 Warhol’s Lesson, DOX, Prague, Czech Republic.
2006 The Studio, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin. Wieder und Wider: Performance Appropriated, “Nominally an installation, a performance, or an event, 2006”, MUMOK, Vienna, Austria. Don Quijote, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Samuel Beckett: A Passion for Painting, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Ireland. Momentum, Nordic Biennial for Contemporary Art, Moss, Norway. Bühne des Lebens, Rhetorik des Gefüls, Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany. Tate Triennial2006: New British Art, Tate Modern, London, U.K. A Short History of Performance, Part IV, Whitechapel Gallery, London, U.K.?VOLTAshow02, Basel Switzerland. (with Green On Red Gallery) Failure, curated by Mike Fitzpatrick, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny.
2005 If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution, Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Group show, VanAbbemuseum, Eindhoven, Belgium. Information/Transformation, Extra City Centre for Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium. I really should…,(curated by Stefan Kalmar), Lisson Gallery, London, U.K. Individual fields, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore Castle, Waterford, Ireland. Gotenburg International Biennale for Contemporary Art, Gotenburg, Sweden. Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny, Ireland. Icestorm, München Kunstverein, Munich, Germany. Glasgow International, Glasgow, U.K. Stichting Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands. New Territories, Arco, Madrid, Spain.
2004 Dedicated to a proposition,Extra City Centre for Contemporary Art, Antwerp. Tírna N-Og, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. ArtCologne, Green on Red Gallery, Cologne, Germany. Present Future, Artissima, Green on Red Gallery, Turin, Italy. Fiction: Truth in Photography and Painting, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, U.K .[Curated by Faye Fleming] The Whitstable Biennial. Whitstable, U.K.*In the time of shaking Irish Artists for Amnesty International, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. This much is certain, Royal College of Art, London, U.K. Tonight, Studio Voltaire, London, U.K. New Party, The Breeder Projects, Athens, Greece. Invited EV + A, Limerick, Ireland.
2003 Art Institutions: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Working with Contemporary Art , Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland. Istanbul Biennal, Istanbul, Turkey. The American Effect, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, U.S. Stop & Go, FRAC, Pas-de-Calais, France. Greyscale/ CMYK, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland. Permaculture, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
PUBLIC ART PROJECTS
2007 Glasshouse Archive: Modernity’s North Dublin Legacy, Mobile Library, Fingal CountyCouncil, Dublin, Ireland.
PUBLICATIONS
A country road. A tree. Evening., Bak, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2004. George Baker, Gerard Byrne Books, Magazines and Newspapers, Frankfurter Kunstverein/ Lukas & Sternberg, New York 2003. This Much is Certain, Royal College of Art, London MA Curating show, 2004. Poetic justice, The 8th Istanbul Niennial, Ed. Dan Cameron, 2003 The American Effect Ed. Lawrence Rinder, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2003?Interview with Joachim Koester, Newspaper Jan Mot, Brussels, Jan-Feb 2003?Op- Ed, Douglas Hyde Gallery and Limerick City Gallery, Dublin, 2002. Greyscale/ CMYK, NIFCA, Helsinki, 2002. October 100, MIT Press, New York, 2002. How things turn out (Cat.) I.M.M.A.,Dublin 2002. Annie Fletcher (Editor) Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, 2002. Transporter (Cat.) Editors De Chiara and Urabe. AARA Bangkok Thailand 2000. Utopias (Cat.) Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin. 1999 Performance Festival (Cat.) Pub.Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark 1999. EV+A '99 (Cat.) Ed. Jeanne Greenberg Rohytan. Pub. Gandon Editions 1999. Performance Festival (Cat.) Pub.Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark 1997. Collisions (Cat.) Ed. Corinne Diserans. Pub. Arteleku, San Sebastian Spain, 1995. Lux Europae (Cat.)Ed. Isabelle Vasier. Pub. Edinburgh 1992. Windfall (Cat.) Pub. Glasgow 1991


AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2006 Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award
2005-2006 Visual Arts Residency, Banff Centre, Canada.
2002 Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Artists Residency, Helsinki.
2001 Irish Museum of Modern Art, Artists’ s Work Programme
Arts Council Bursary, Ireland.
1998 Victor Treacy Award, Kilkenny
P.S.1 Studio Program, New York.
1994-1998 Fulbright Scholarship.
1994 Irish Arts Council Bursary.
1992 Pepinières Residency, Niort, France.
EDUCATION
1999 Whitney Independent Study Program, New York.
1997-1998 P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre Program, New York.
1996 M.F.A. New School for Social Research, New York.
1995 Graduate Research Summer School, Arteleku, San Sebastien, Spain.
1991 B.A. National College of Art & Design, Dublin.