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.
Vanishing from the mainstream headlines, the nuclear catastrophe of Fukushima seems more and more eclipsed from our eyes. Out of sight, out of mind, so would the governments like it to be. If you visit The Japan Times website, you will see at least some information on the ongoing crisis. 'Radioactive beef already sold, eaten'. A few days ago, the headline 'Cesium found in Fukushima cattle feed' outlined in its article that 'the contaminated beef did not reach retailers, the officials said'.
Where are all these headlines in our newspapers?
Yesterday, TEPCO announced that it hopes to reduce the highly radioactive leaks by end of July and to cool the reactors by January 2012. And across the ocean, in America, two nuclear incidents are escalating with minimal press reporting. The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Facility in Omaha, due to be re-licensed until 2030, is being submerged by dangerous flooding, with its surrounding area now designated a 'No Fly Zone' since early June. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a 93 square mile wild fire approached the Los Alamos' nuclear lab dump site, where an estimated 20,000 55-gallon drums of nuclear waste are being inadequately stored above ground. After burning an acre of lab property, crews are now preparing for flash-flooding in the area triggered by the fire. This would not be the first time that governments, particularly the U.S. Government, withhold data and violate free exchange of information 'for national security purposes'. Sites such as Fort Calhoun and Los Alamos, essentially produce enriched material for nuclear weapons and bombs, holding close ties to the military. In 1959, Boeing Rocketdyne nuclear testing facility released the third greatest amount of radioactive iodine in nuclear history. The incident went unreported for 40 years.
'It is a great error to believe that by making the political choice of its energetic turnaround, Germany is breaking with the European concept of modernity and turning towards an archaic age...What is irrational is not the exit from the nuclear power, but continuing to defend it after Fukushima...refusing to take our lessons from history's experience', says the German sociologist and philosopher Ulrich Beck in Le Monde. And moreover, who wants to trust our future with an industry that keeps its lips so tight?
I wonder if you knew how deeply special and enormously loved you were. I wonder if you knew how many lives you touched with your unbridled support and love of art. You were a truly unique, and a deeply caring person; always encouraging with a huge heart for those you believed in and cared about. I wonder if you knew the impact that you had. I can only speak for myself, but it was huge. You were one of the first people to take me seriously. You took me aside and you shared your favorite books, you loaned them to me, even though they were fragile, and out-of-print. I was so ashamed to return them because one had come apart, so I carefully placed it in a binder, filing each page individually for preservation. You made a gesture, your fist to your heart. Charlie, you leave behind a legacy of this kind. More than anything you were an inspiration. You lived a life that was full and passionate, you never compromised on your ideals, and for that you will be remembered. You were first class, a kind of a Hunter Thompson of the art and publishing community in Tokyo... Your name brought a smile to everyone's face.
I just corresponded with you weeks ago, you were encouraging as always. I feel a tragic loss for the Japanese community, for your beautiful wife,Kazumi, and for your little daughters, Fumi, and Tao. Charlie you did not take a lot of credit for your influence, you were uniquely humble in a world of celebrity, preferring to live life on your terms only. Most beautiful is how you believed in the possibilities of what could be.
Your memory will live on forever in the art community.
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