In his videos and series of land art explosions the multi-disciplinary French artist Cyprien Gaillard questions a romantic view of vandalism and the traces left on the landscape by man. The video 'Desniansky Raion' (2007, 30'), on view at Cosmic Galerie in Paris until 3 March, flips back and forth between between order and chaos. In three parts, the video opens with a static shot of a building from the 70s, a triumphal arch at the entrance to the city of Belgrade. Then the focus switches to two gangs of hooligans fighting in the parking lot of a housing project in the suburbs of St Petersburg, reminiscent of a medieval battle scene, the violence both savage and codified.
The second part of the video shows a static shot of the façade of a high-rise block in the suburbs of Paris, onto which is projected a display of light, music and fireworks. This grandiose staging, usually saved for historical buildings, ends abruptly with the building collapsing. The final section takes us through Desniansky Raion, a district in the suburbs of Kiev, filmed without flight clearance from a microlight, dangerously shaken by the wind, producing images both cinematographic and amateurish.
Also in the exhibition is a photograph from Gaillard's series of films of explosions in the landscape that he has carried out since 2001. 'Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (Part 6)' reveals Robert Smithson's iconic 'Spiral Jetty' emerging through a cloud of smoke. To carry out these brief works of Land Art works, which are documented in 35mm films and photographs, Cyprien Gaillard lets off industrial fire extinguishers, in carefully chosen landscapes, which release a thick white powder, creating a vaporous cloud as well as a sense of threat. The audience is placed in an awkward position of being seduced by the drama of the resulting images but, once learning of the process involved in attaining them, realises that what is in fact on record is an act of vandalism that can be legitimised only in the art world.
Cyprien Gaillard was born in 1980 in Paris where he lives and works. He had a solo show in London at Laura Bartlett last year and will have a solo show at the Atelier du Jeu de Paume, Paris, in February 2008.
Cyprien Gaillard
Until 3 March
Cosmic Galerie
7-9, rue de l'Équerre
75019 Paris
T:+33 1 42 71 72 73
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