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.--e-flux website.