purple DIARY

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SALT 3: CYPRIEN GAILLARD's SOLO SHOW at the utah museum of fine arts, salt lake city

As part of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts' new exhibition series, the young French artist Cyprien Gaillard showcases his film Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009). Over nine minutes, the film runs as a non-narrative five-segment film shot in Cancun, Mexico. Set to a synthesized soundtrack from an Eighties French-Japanese cartoon called The Mysterious Cities of Gold, the film opens to the scene of young Americans' Spring-break debauchery. In the background, a hotel resort designed to imitate an ancient Mayan pyramid, draws Gaillard's parallels between consumerist decadence and architecture - the mindless tourist's act becomes one of a living, modern ruin. Working in film, video, photography and installation, the film continues Gaillard's work in the artistic traditions of Romanticism and Land Art to engage his ideas of displacement, disenchantment, and decay within our contemporary landscape. The scenes then switch from a sea view of a dolphin swimming, to a Bloods gang member performing a ritual dance upon the sacred Mayan site of Las Ruinas del Rey, then shifting again to the violent, cinematic explosion of a large mirrored building. The spectacle of demolition falls into a certain sensibility to Robert Smithson's vision of buildings that "rise into ruin" through destruction. With the Mayan prophecy of our era's end on December 21 2012, the paradoxes of Mexico's landscapes and traditions ties Gaillard's film in our time's movement through the cyclic power struggles of our environment. Photo of a still from Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009) by Cyprien Gaillard, 16mm film, 8.52mn, courtesy of Spruth Magers and Laura Bartlett Gallery. Text Sophie Pinchetti

Salt 3: Cyprien Gaillard is on view through August 21 at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Marcia and John Price Museum Building, 410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City.

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Matthew Stone's solo show at the Union Gallery, london

London's Union Gallery presents Matthew Stone's Rules Forever (Part II) as a follow up to the artist's previous exhibition (Part I) which combines physics with photography. Stone's practice references the works of Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher, both of whom relied on the power of geometry relating to perfection and the divine. In addition to intersecting bodies with fragmented triangles and pentagons, Stone photographs his models in iconic positions as a way to reevaluate the traditional context for such imagery and prompt viewers to consider why certain poses reappear throughout history. Many of the resulting photographs feel especially cinematic as though from a Derek Jarman film. Photo Matthew Stone and text Juliana Balestin

Rules Forever (Part II) by Matthew Stone is on view through July 30 at the Union Gallery, 94 Teesdale Street, London.

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye screens during the Paris Film Festival 2011

Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, Marie Losier's debut film was screened as part of Paris' annual Cinema Festival. An intimate portrait of the life and work of the challenging performance artist and industrial rock pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, with his other half and collaborator Lady Jaye, the documentary reveals the pair's controversial sexual transformations, as part of their collaborative Pandrogyne project.

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier will next be screened for its West Coast premiere at Outfest, the 29th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, from July 7-17, Los Angeles.

MY LITTLE PRINCESS BY EVA IONESCO IN CINEMAS JUNE 29

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Stylist Catherine Baba and the French film actress Isabelle Hupert, who did an outstanding performance as Irina Ionesco in the new film My Little Princess out in France tomorrow, at the Paris premiere at Cinema L'Arlequin, Paris. Photo Olivier Zahm