Cyprien Gaillard: Ocean II Ocean
"Think of silence as violence, when silence means you become a frozen sea,"¹ writes American poet Chen Chen. "...the right silence can even be an act, an axe that splits a hole in the frozen sea."¹
Can silence have jurisdiction? Can collapse and destruction take shape? What do ruins conceal? What has been preserved on the fossilized surface of the past? What drifts among the traces of exploitation and abuse polluting the oceans? What lies beneath the surface of the water?
Schedule
Cyprien Gaillard’s first solo exhibition in Hungary invites viewers beneath the surface, where different materials and sensibilities collide, whether it be the concrete bottom of an artificial lake in the suburbs of Paris, the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, or Soviet metro stations deep underground. Gaillard brilliantly connects different temporalities and spaces, elements of the built and natural environment, forgotten stories with events of our everyday lives, the living with those who lived before us, and sheds new light on our present through fragments of the past. His works carry within them the beauty of gradual and inevitable collapse. The exhibition alternates between the rhythm of calm resignation and violent passing, but echoes of the future can also be heard in this rhythm. Or, as the artist refers to this with a quote from Vladimir Nabokov: "The future is nothing but the past turned upside down."²
Put a seashell to your ear and you will hear the ocean. Put an ammonite fossil to your ear and you will hear time.
Cyprien Gaillard works in a variety of genres, including film, video, photography, installation, and performance. The captivating audiovisual language of his films evokes the aesthetic tradition of 18th- and 19th-century Romanticism, which sought the sublime in images of ruins, raging nature, and extreme landscapes. However, his works can also be seen as a socio-critical analysis of colonialism, the failed social aspirations of modernist architecture, and the volatility of capital in the age of tourism and gentrification. Or a reflection on how quickly we are able to forget that all societies are ultimately doomed to destruction, and that one civilization inevitably gives way to the next.
Cyprien Gaillard (*1980, Paris) lives and works in Berlin and Paris. His solo exhibitions have been shown at the following institutions, among others: OGR, Turin (2024), Palais de Tokyo & Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2022), Fondation LUMA, Arles (2022), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2021), TANK Shanghai (2019), Accelerator Konsthall, Stockholm (2019), Museum Tinguely, Basel (2019), K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2016), Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf (2015), MoMA PS1, New York (2013), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013), Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2012), Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2012), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2011) and Kunsthalle Basel (2010). He has participated in group exhibitions at renowned institutions such as the Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2024), Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles (2022), Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2022), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021), Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin (2021), GAMeC, Bergamo (2021), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2020), the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles (2019), Cleveland Triennial (2018), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2018), Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018), ARoS Triennial, Aarhus (2017), The Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing (2017), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2017), Hayward Gallery, London (2016), the 13th Lyon Biennale (2015), the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Gwangju Biennale (2010), and the 5th Berlin Biennale (2008).
Trafó House of Contemporary Arts
The Trafó House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest is a unique venue in Hungary, embedded in the international contemporary scene, where different genres - theatre, dance, new circus, music and visual arts - are presented in a unique and authentic way.