RHA Projects, Dublin, is pleased to announce the solo exhibition John Gerrard: Animated Scene, a collateral event at the 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Three recent works will be presented as large-scale projections in a boathouse on the former monastery island of Certosa, marking the first time that this venue will be used for the Biennale.

John Gerrard creates virtual scenes, astonishingly real but entirely and meticulously fabricated by the artist and his studio. In 2006, he discovered a single archival image of the North American 'Dust Bowl' which has informed much of his research since. Between 2007-2009 he produced a series of works, each requiring up to a year to build, that document agri-industrial landscapes of the Great Plains, scattered with grain silos, pig production units and small towns. From the unflinching vantage point of an orbital camera, the viewer is encouraged to look at these desolate places and appraise the underlying structures that sustain contemporary society. One finds evidence of a nitrogen-and oil-based reality, dehumanized and existing on the outer limits of what is environmentally possible or even plausible.

The project's title refers to the position that these damaged post-Dust Bowl sites occupy within the realm of globalised power, politics and society. Remade, they exist as parallel worlds, frozen in time to function as discursive points in the wider social landscape.

A fourth work from the Animated Scene series will be shown concurrently at the Palazzo

Fortuny, Venice, as part of In-Finitum, the final part of a trilogy of exhibitions mounted by Axel Vervoordt, which began in 2007 with Artempo: When Time Becomes Art.

Location
The Island of Certosa is located two stops (5 minutes) from the Giardini on public waterbus number 41.

Dates
Press reception with the artist: June 3, 3-6 pm (preview continues through June 6)
Opening: June 4, 2009, 6.30pm
Public exhibition: June 7-September 30, 2009

Artist
John Gerrard (b.1974) lives and works between Dublin, Ireland, and Vienna, Austria. Recent solo exhibitions include Simon Preston Gallery, New York, and Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin. Recent group exhibitions include Academia at L'Ecole de Beaux Arts, Paris, and Equal, That Is, to the Real Itself at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York. Gerrard received a BFA from the School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford University in 1997, and an MFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2000. In June 2009 he will begin a guest residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Institution
RHA Projects is an initiative of the Royal Hibernian Academy, an artist-based and artist-orientated institution in Dublin, Ireland, dedicated to developing, affirming and challenging the public's appreciation and understanding of traditional and innovative approaches to the visual arts.

Curators
The project is curated by Jasper Sharp, an independent curator and writer based in Vienna, Austria, and Patrick T. Murphy, Director and Curator of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Catalogue
An illustrated 64-page catalogue with texts by Prof. Michael A. Morris, Patrick T. Murphy, Linda Norden and Jasper Sharp has been published by Schlebrügge.Editor, Vienna.