Cyprien Gaillard
Belief in the Age of Disbelief (Les quatre arbres / étape VII)
2005
etching
36 x 47 centimeters
In Belief in the Age of Disbelief, Gaillard has introduced tower blocks into 17th Century Dutch landscape etchings. These post-war structures, once a symbol of utopian promise that have now come to represent racial conflict, urban decay, criminality and violence, have been seamlessly assimilated into a rural idyll. Some tower blocks have been positioned in the composition like a defiant medieval fortress, others as apocalyptic ruins. Like the paintings of Hubert Robert, admired by Diderot, who depicted ancient ruins and even the imaginary future ruins of the Louvre (1796), Gaillard comments on the relationship between romanticism and decay, and architectures' inherent communicative power.
Cyprien Gaillard
Desniansky Raion
2007
video
Alternating between order and chaos, the video "Desniansky Raion" (2007, 29 min.) explores the notion of entropy as developped by Land Art major artist Robert SMITHSON. After a static introduction shot on a building from the 1970s, a monumental triumphal arch marking the entrance of Belgrade, the video unwinds its three sequences, without visible narrative link, to the electro-lyrical music of composer KOUDLAM: first a pitched battle between two hooligan gangs on a car park in the suburbs of Saint-Petersburg; then a grandiose show of lights, lasers and fireworks on the facade of a housing block in the suburbs of Paris, before it collapses; finally, a precariousi flightover a multitude of grey towers rising into a snowy and melancholic landscape on the outskirts of Kiev, where from eventually emerges a perfect circular organisation, recalling the megalithic site of Stonehenge, in England.
Cyprien Gaillard
Real Remnants of Fictive Wars VI
2007
lambda print
100 x 150 centimeters
The piece unveils Robert SMITHSON's iconic Spiral Jetty covered by a cloud of smoke. To carry out the short-lived Land Art works of this series, Cyprien GAILLARD and his accomplices activate industrial fire extinguishers in carefully chosen landscapes, releasing a thick white powder that creates vaporous and vaguely threatening cloud. He hence places the audience in an ambiguous situation, initially seduced by the image of the artwork, before become aware of the process of its creation: an act of vandalism that could only be legitimized in the context of the art world. Through this, Cyprien GAILLARD takes into account the notion of entropy as defined by SMITHSON: a transformation that ineluctably moves towards chaos.
