Cyprien Gaillard built a beer pyramid for visitors to dismantle at KW Berlin

In 2011, Cyprien Gaillard built a stepped pyramid from boxes containing 72,000 bottles of Efes beer at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Titled The Recovery of Discovery, the installation invited visitors to climb its tiers and drink its contents, gradually dismantling the monument through use.

Curated by Susanne Pfeffer, the exhibition ran from 27 March to 22 May 2011. This look back follows the work through Uwe Walter’s photographs, which record a precise geometric form becoming an uneven field of discarded packaging and glass.

The Recovery of Discovery begins as a monument

In the photographs of the intact work, repeated blue cartons make each step legible across the gallery. Their printed surfaces act almost like a single colour at a distance. Seen closer, the commercial packaging interrupts that apparent uniformity: the monument is assembled from products waiting to be opened.

The gallery’s white columns and overhead light establish a second, fixed geometry around the pyramid. This surrounding framework becomes a useful visual measure in the later photographs. The room stays recognisable while the object at its centre loses its outline.

Preservation, displacement and consumption

KW’s exhibition text connected the shipment of beer from Turkey to Germany with the displacement of cultural monuments, particularly the Pergamon Altar. It questioned what preservation means when an object is separated from its original setting.

Within Gaillard’s installation, encounter and damage were inseparable. Participation reduced the structure that made participation possible, turning consumption into a process of physical transformation.

A changing landscape of cardboard and glass

The later views show torn brown cardboard breaking through the blue surfaces. Green bottles collect between collapsed boxes and spread onto the floor. Steps that were once clear become difficult to distinguish, although the overall mound still recalls the pyramid’s earlier shape.

At the edges, the photographs shift attention away from the central mass. Bottles line a narrow passage and gather against walls; fragments scatter across the floor. These peripheral views make the work read less as an isolated sculpture than as an occupation of the gallery.

Read as a sequence, the images resist a simple division between a finished object and its aftermath. The orderly stack and the scattered remains belong to the same work. Its most telling contrast is between the consistency of the exhibition room and the instability of everything assembled inside it.

Project Credits

Exhibition: The Recovery of Discovery
Artist: Cyprien Gaillard
Curator: Susanne Pfeffer
Venue: KW Institute for Contemporary Art / @kwinstitutefcontemporaryart
Location: Berlin, Germany
Exhibition dates: 27 March to 22 May 2011
Materials: Cardboard boxes and 72,000 bottles of Efes beer
Photography: Uwe Walter
Support: Capital Cultural Fund, Berlin