PREVIEW:: C Y P R I E N GAILLARD @FONDAZIONE TRUSSARDI, MILANO

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Cyprien Gaillard, The Lake Archives, Video still, 2007
Copyright Cyprien Gaillard
 Courtesy of Sprüth Magers, Berlin/London, Bugada & Cargnel, Paris, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London

Opening on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan is Cyprien Gaillard, Rubble and Revelation.  Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, this will be the artists first major solo exhibition in Italy. Gaillard, who is based in Berlin, has made quite a splash within the contemporary art  scene. He has had exhibitions in both museums and galleries worldwide including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2011, 2008) and most recently at the Schinkel Pavillon with an exhibition and performance titled, What It Does To Your City. He has also been the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Prize for Young Art from the National Gallery in Berlin, (2011), the Marcel Duchamp Prize from Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2010), the Karl Ströher Prize (2010) and others. The exhibition in Milan promises to present a series of new mixed media works. Gaillard works in public installation, sculpture, video, performance and collage. As of right now, the content of the exhibition is being kept secret and those in Milan will have to attend the opening or the press preview on the 13th to find out!

Cyprien Gaillard is an artist interested in the contemporary landscape, architecture, pop culture and the reinvention of familiar symbols and signs. He was deemed one of the New Romantics by Jonathan Griffin in Frieze Magazine in 2010 and his popularity and work since then, continues to expand. Born in 1980 in Paris, in person he presents an undeniable sense playful confidence and charm. His artwork might result in some head scratching, but for the most part allows for an open, on-going dialogue regarding contemporary art, specifically identification, translation of visual materials and the physicality of common experience. 

Cyprien Gaillard, Neon Indian, Haus der Statistik
Alexanderplatz, Berlin
Photograph by Krzysztof Zielinski, 2011

As part of Based in Berlin in 2011, Gaillard, by way of Sprüeth Magers his Berlin based gallery, installed Neon Indian on the roof of the Haus Der Statistik in Alexanderplatz. The indian caricature, which is frequently used in his artwork both in photography and collage, has been derived from the US baseball team the Cleveland Indians. The representation of the indian outside of the context of sport mascot as well as the cultural confines of Native Americanism allows for both an otherworldly and comical relationship to post-colonialism and stereotype. Another exhibition that took place in Berlin in 2011, titled The Recovery of Discovery, at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art as part of the Berlin Biennale.  Here his work consisted of an large installation, inside the expansive interior of the gallery. A large, pyramid was constructed of cardboard boxes filled approximately 72,000 bottles of "Efes" beer, imported from Turkey to Germany. The pyramid commented on the mythology of monument and the construct of desire. Guests were invited to drink the contents of the boxes and swarmed the triangular shape as bees to honey. His was a reference to the Pergamon Altar, now housed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, but originally built in 2nd century BC by King Eumenes II in what is now Turkish territory. The work was controversial although pertinent for placing him on contemporary art radar. 

Cyprien Gaillard, The Recovery of Discovery, Installation view
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Photograph by Anna K.O.,  2011

Cyprien Gaillard, Geographical Analogies, 2006-2011
Mixed media
Copyright Cyprien Gaillard
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin/London

For Rubble and Revelation,  curator Massimiliano Gioni, who is regularly part of the staff of the New Museum in New York and also the official curator of the upcoming Venice Biennale summer 2013, will present Cyprien Gaillard at the Caserma XXIV Maggio, a Romanesque Revival building that housed military barracks and a bakery responsible for feeding most of the troops in the Lombardy region of Italy during World War II. The structure and it's historical resonance I'm sure will echo phantasmagorically in the work that he will present. There is a wealth of symbolic history ripe for interpretation whether in political jest or earnest contemplation. Stay tuned!

Cyprien Gaillard, Rubble and Revelation, opens to the public at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi November 13th at 6:30pm. 

More soon.
xo