Cyprien Gaillard 'Beton Belvedere'

22 February thru 5 April 2009
Location: Hogewal 1-9
Opening hours: Wednesday - Sunday 12-5 pm

More on the bunker project ‘Dunepark': click here.

With ‘Beton Belvedere', Stroom Den Haag presents the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands of the French artist Cyprien Gaillard. Intrigued by contemporary ruins and concerned by the rapid destruction of modernist architecture, Gaillard explores notions of state vandalism, gentrification and the picturesque. The exhibition, curated by Zoë Gray, is accompanied by an ambitious project in public space. Titled ‘Dunepark', Gaillard's site-specific project is the excavation of a World War II bunker currently buried in a hill overlooking the beach of Scheveningen.

Beton Belvedere
Gaillard's exhibition at Stroom presents an overview of his work from the past few years, revealing his unique vision of our contemporary landscape. Included are two large photographs, View over Sighthill and Chateau d'Oiron (both 2008). Whilst seeming to depict two unrelated buildings - a tower block in Glasgow and a French 18th century chateau - these two pictures reveal an enduring fascination of the artist: the widespread demolition of modernist architecture across Europe and the cultural amnesia that he believes this demolition will cause. The tower block depicted in View over Sighthill is photographed moments before its demolition, its empty rooms glowing with the colours of abandoned wallpapers. The focus of the second picture is not in fact the chateau itself, but the path in the foreground. Gaillard had rubble from demolished tower blocks in the Parisian suburbs shipped to this chateau, and lined the majestic driveway and paths with the crushed concrete.

Also presented at Stroom are Gaillard's etchings Belief in the Age of Disbelief (2005), in which iconic Modernist towers are inserted into the rural landscapes of 17th century Holland. As a counterpart to Gaillard's work, a sequence of etchings by the Italian master Piranesi are shown - on loan for the first time ever from the collection of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. These works locate Gaillard's very contemporary practice within the art historical tradition of landscape, whilst also revealing the ongoing artistic fascination with ruins and with shifting notions of the picturesque.

Download the exhibition notes by Zoë Gray (pdf file).

For more information on Cyprien Gaillard:
click here.
For more information on Zoë  Gray:
click here.
Article 'A Handful of Dust' by JG Ballard (Guardian, 20 March 2006)
(source of inspiration for Zoë Gray).

Extra activities:
Sunday 1 March at 3 pm: guided tour of the exhibition by curator Zoë Gray.
Sunday March 15 at 3 pm: guided tour (in Dutch) of the exhibition by art historian Jaring Durst Britt.
Sunday March 29 at 3 pm: guided tour (in Dutch) of the exhibition by Marie Jeanne de Rooij, followed by a meeting at the Dunepark site with Rose Tzalmona and Tim de Mos.
Sunday April 5 at 15 pm: guided tour (in Dutch) of the exhibition by art historian Jaring Durst Britt .

Special thanks:
Mondriaan Stichting, Maison Descartes - Institut Français des Pays-Bas, Royal Academy of Art The Hague, Laura Bartlett Gallery London, Cosmic Gallery Paris, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam, Stichting Ruimtevaart The Hague.

Beton Belvedere is part of the theme program 'nu monument'.

22 Feb '09 - 05 Apr '09
Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Entrance: free