'Industrial Portrait' Artist John Gerrard to Speak Wednesday

A work by artist John Gerrard.

Irish artist John Gerrard, whose work addresses questions of power and control in the contemporary world, will present a lecture titled “Exercise,” on Wednesday, March 6, at 2 p.m.  in Wilde Auditorium.

The talk, which is part of the Hartford Art School’s Auerbach Visiting Artist Lecture Series, is free and open to the public, and is made possible by The Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund.

Many of Gerrard’s works are in the form of "virtual portraits" of structures in the landscape – industrial facilities that exemplify the way in which the contemporary world relies on hidden and increasingly automated networks of resource extraction, from oil to agriculture to livestock.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1974, Gerrard received a BFA from The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University. He undertook postgraduate studies at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Trinity College, Dublin, and in 2002 was awarded a Pépinières Residency at Ars Electronica, Linz.

During his talk, Gerrard will provide an overview of recent works within simulation, beginning with the series Animated Scene, shown as part of the Venice Biennial in 2009. He also will speak about three recent commissions within a series titled "Exercise": Infinite Freedom Exercise (near Abadan, Iran) 2011, produced for the Manchester International Festival 2011; Live Fire Exercise, a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor for the Royal Ballet in 2011; and Exercise (Djibouti) 2012, commissioned by Modern Art Oxford and Oxford University.

For more information about Gerrard's talk, contact Karen DeGrace, executive assistant to the dean of the Hartford Art School, at 860.768.4392 or degrace@hartford.edu.