Cyprien Gaillard — À propos — Slash Paris

Between iconoclasm and minimal aesthetics, romanticism and Land Art, the work of Cyprien Gaillard questions man’s traces in nature in an iconoclastic way. Through sculpture, painting, etching, photography, video, performance and large scale interventions in public space, Gaillard has established himself as a major emerging artist on the international art scene.

Whether he commissions a traditional landscape painter to paint colourful views of housing projects in Swiss suburbs, surrounded by their luxurious natural environment (Swiss Ruins, 2005), or introduces a view of a tower-block into a 17th Century Dutch landscape etching (Belief in the Age of Disbelief, 2005), Gaillard shows contemporary architecture as a modern ruin on the verge of being taken over by nature. Just like 18th century French “ruiniste” painter Hubert Robert did when he painted the Louvre as an imaginary ruin, Gaillard follows French philosopher Denis Diderot’s advice according to which “One must ruin a palace to make it an object of interest”.