Between vandalism and minimal aesthetics, romanticism and Land Art, the work of Cyprien Gaillard questions man's traces in nature in an iconoclastic way.

Through sculpture, painting, etching, photography, video, performance and large-scale interventions in public space, the Paris-born, Berlin-based Gaillard has established himself as a major emerging artist on the international scene having exhibited work at the Tate Modern and the Hayward gallery in London, The New Museum in New York City, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to name a few.

Currently, Gaillard is showing 'The Fight Against Vegetation' at Malta Contemporary Art in Valletta; available to view until July the 4th.

'The Fight Against Vegetation' focuses on three of Cyprien Gaillard's major film works.

From the mesmerising and disturbing Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009) shot in Cancun and contrasting American youth culture with archeological ruin and the new architectural landscape is followed by the silent, yet aggressive The Lake Arches (2006), where a young man breaks his nose diving into an artificial lake in a modernist development.

The third piece; a 30-minute long film Desniansky Raion (2007) is conceived as a triptych and accompanied by the spherical music of Koudlam, the opening shot focuses on the monumental 35-storey dilapidated West gate of Belgrade, the Genex-Tower.

The subsequent scenes shift to street fights of hooligans in a suburb of St. Petersburg; the spectacular detonation of a Parisian apartment complex accompanied by a lightshow, fireworks and music and finally a bird’s-eye-view on a desolate housing complex in the district called Desniansky Raion in wintry Kiev; resonant of Stonehenge's architectural formations.