Cyprien Gaillard: Overburden

Curated by Therese Kellner and Richard Julin

The Cyprien Gaillard exhibition at Accelerator is the first presentation in Sweden of the French artist. Overburden features some of Gaillard’s most recent pieces along with new works relating to Sweden, created especially for the exhibition at Accelerator.

“With his unique, poetic visual language, Cyprien Gaillard offers perspectives on our time and life in the era of the Anthropocene. He exposes humanity’s inability to understand or cease the repetition of our own cycles and recurrent rituals,” says Therese Kellner, curator at Accelerator.

Cyprien Gaillard’s artistic practice addresses concepts such as development and progress in works where time is neither moving forward nor linear but cyclical. His approach stems from an interest in geology, deep time, and what is happening beneath the surface—of the oceans, and of the mind. Elements of destruction and resurrection are combined into a cyclical process, where historic objects and figures are inserted in a contemporary narrative. Gaillard creates spatial experiences composed from sound, image and movement. The exhibition at Accelerator features new works by Cyprien Gaillard relating to the current political climate and the context of Sweden’s history.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Accelerator presents a public event programme in association with the Master’s programme Curating Art and researchers from the Department of Geological Sciences at Stockholm University.

About Cyprien Gaillard
Cyprien Gaillard (b. 1980 in Paris, France) is based in Berlin and New York. He has been the subject of several solo exhibitions: at MoMA PS1, Hammer Museum (US) Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland) and Tate Modern (UK). In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Marchel Duchamp Prize, followed by a major solo show at the Centre Georges Pompidou (France). Two of the works featured at Accelerator are also shown at the concurrent 58th Venice Biennale.

About Accelerator
Accelerator is an exhibition space where art, science and social issues meet. It is part of Stockholm University. The mission of Accelerator is to engage actively with society, producing exhibitions presenting international and Swedish contemporary art. It organises public presentations and talks with artists, researchers, students and the general public. Accelerator’s programme is driven by an ambition to contribute towards a transparent and empathetic society by opening up opportunities for art to spark discussions and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Accelerator is supported by Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art and The Robert Weil Family Foundation. 
 

For press information, interviews, images, and to RSVP for the press preview, contact:
Tove Nilson, Communications Manager
T + 46 (0)766 95 19 37 / tove.nilson@su.se