Willie Doherty "Willie Doherty"

‘Willie Doherty (1959) poses us the question of how we remember our experiences and how objective these are. Many of Doherty’s works are closely bound up with his place of birth, Derry, a city which has lived under the tension of a religious-political divide for over thirty years, since Bloody Sunday in 1972 when British troops killed thirteen people during a demonstration. The exhibition consists of photographic works, video installations, stills from ‘feature films’ and reportage photographs, which have something very familiar about them – they recall the settings typically used for crime scenes and hot pursuits in films. But in Derry, these are no mere decors or contrived moods. By training his cinematographic gaze onto a landscape or cityscape, Doherty achieves a level of realism that has a disturbing emotional effect on the viewer. This solo exhibition takes place within the framework of the World Wide Video Festival.’ (Press release De Appel) Catalogue: Willie Doherty. False Memory, 2002. Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Text: Irish Museum of Modern Art, Willie Doherty, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith. English. 167 pp. Soft cover. Design: Karen Wilks. ISBN 1 85894 179 2. € 25,-