ArtFocus 5 | Archive » Cyprien Gaillard

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46

Cyprien Gaillard // The Butcher of Dalmarnock

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Cyprien Gaillard Born (1980) and lives in France. Recent solo exhibitions and projects: Jeu de Paume, Paris (2007), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008); recent group exhibitions: MARCO Vigo, Spain (2008), Kunsthalle Basel (2008), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2008).

The Scottish district of Dalmarnock, whose capital is Glasgow, has been chosen to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. In preparation for this event, the city has undertaken the systematic destruction of its tower blocks – four 1960s housing projects that today symbolize the abandoned ideals of modernist urbanism. Cyprien Gaillard’s The Butcher of Dalmarnock opens with a closeup of a middle-aged woman’s strained smile, accompanied by a soundtrack of indistinct chatter and light flashes. A second shot reveals this figure to be the director of the Commonwealth Games committee, who is standing several hundred meters away from one of the tower blocks with an old-fashioned pump detonator in hand. Following the explosion, the tower collapses into a cloud of dust. The director and a young companion ceremoniously gesture towards the rubble. This work documents a process of “making way” for new functions and forms of architecture, which the artist characterizes as “statesanctioned vandalism.”

Chantal Akerman