The Recovery of Discovery
Solo exhibition at KW Institute for contemporary Art, Berlin
March 27 – May 22, 2011

–

Two weeks ago, French artist CYPRIEN GAILLARD presented his latest installation at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. Entitled “The Recovery of Discovery”, this large-scale piece consists of a pyramid made of cardboard boxes filled with beer bottles. 72,000 bottles of beer of the brand “Efes” have been transported from Turkey to Germany and are supposed to be drunk by the multitude of visitors during the long night of the vernissage and in the days to follow. The exhibition is indeed open until May 22nd, when the installation will be totally destroyed.

In visiting the monument—by climbing the sculpture and drinking the beer—its destruction is already initiated. As stated by CYPRIEN GAILLARD, “trying to preserve, you stop the development”, this idea is the starting point of his installation:

Preserving a monument goes hand in hand with destroying it. In order to preserve architecture, cultural monuments and relics, they are often re-located, thus abolishing the original context. The potential knock-on effects are urban displacement and the disappearance of the concepts of autonomous geography and archeology. The dislocation of a monument not only alters the history of its original location, but also leads to a radical re-interpretation of the monument itself.

Through the use of the sculpture, he wanted to highlight the destruction of the building, the concept of displacement and tourist colonialism. Along the lines of the gradual destruction of the sculpture, the alcohol gradually dispels and destroys both body and mind. The physical hangover is also an architectural one, from which one has to recover.

The successive destruction becomes an aesthetic of resistance.

My suggestion of links:

• WFW’s first post about CYPRIEN GAILLARD’s work
• a video of the installation during the opening
• photos of the opening