Lecture: Infinite Time. New Approaches to the works of John Gerrard, by Agustín Pérez Rubio (Director of MUSAC)

John Gerrard’s exhibition at Ivorypress closed on Saturday 2 April 2011. The works of this multidisciplined artist combine new technologies, photography and poetic language, while reflecting upon political and social issues. The exhibition featured an encounter with Agustín Pérez Rubio, who stated: “The aim of this meeting is to further explore the artistic evolution of the young Irish artist John Gerrard and to analyse his notions of body and sculpture. These feature a technological approach which is quite different to other works where the medium is part of the goal. On the contrary, Gerrard uses specific technological devices to achieve a special relationship with time. Gerrard’s works reflect the notion of things lived over the fields of architecture and landscape in the same way.

There are artistic traditions related to themes and formalisations that John Gerrard has saluted, including the works by On Kawara, Félix González Torres or by more recent artists such as Pierre Huygue, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Cerith Wyn Evans. Departing from the approaches by these artists we will try to track the theoretical and stylistic ways of John Gerrard’s universe. Finally, the participants engaged in a conversation about the exhibition on display at Ivorypress Space I”. The event was hosted by Elena Ochoa Foster, founder and director of Ivorypress. The artist, John Gerrard, was also present. Agustín Pérez Rubio (Valencia, 1972) is an art historian, critic, and curator, a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), the International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) and the Asociación de Directores de Arte Contemporáneo de España (ADACE). He has been the director of MUSAC since 2009.