Desniansky Raion

Cyprien Gaillard and Koudlam

• The Kitchen
• 512 W. 19th Street
• Friday, November 20 8:00pm

In Cyprien Gaillard’s groundbreaking video “Desniansky Raion,” a view of Belgrade’s futuristic town gate opens a triptych where architecture embodies the failure of the modernist social utopia in a brilliant, fascinating demonstration: an epic fight between hooligans in a Russian suburb; a grandiose lightshow preceding the destruction of a habitation tower near Paris; and a breathtaking flight over a circular ensemble of Ukrainian buildings somewhat remniscient of a concrete, monumental version of Stonehenge.

Acclaimed musician Koudlam, a long-time collaborator of Gaillard, will provide his adrenaline-pumping live music to accompany the screening.

Gaillard (born 1980 in Paris, lives and works in Paris) questions the heritage of modernism and man’s traces in nature through videos, performances, photographs, paintings and installations that deal with the notion of entropy. Often taking architecture as a metaphor and a symbol, he navigates between minimalist, Land art and Romantic aesthetics to rehabilitate the ruin as a departing point for creation. He recently had solo shows in the Fredericianum Museum, Kassel, the Hayward Gallery, London and the Museo de Arte Contmporaneo di Castilla y Leon, and his work was exhibited at the New Museum, New York, the Tate Modern, London Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico, Kunsthalle Basel, and was part of the 5th Berlin Biennial.

Supported by Etant Donnes.

$10 at www.thekitchen.org