And for finishing this Monday we’ll digg into Xavier Veilhan’s art. The French polygonal genius who made the cover for Air’s Pocket Symphony or the unconventional sculptures for his exhibition at Versailles last Christmas.
One of the most striking features of his polymorphic practice is that he treats generic objects and shapes of everyday life so that they come out smoothed, without details, and resistant to any psychological insight. Xavier reappraises the history of statuary and exploits family themes with creature archetypes (lions, bears, horses, penguins, rhinos, sharks), portraits and effigies. He is concerned both with the question of perception (ghostly landscapes, light machines, lithophanies) and with vehicles (bicycles, automobiles, airships, boats, not forgetting the carriage he made for his exhibition at the Château of Versailles in 2009)…
(see the building artistic process on his webpage)
This interest in transport (from the horse to contemporary vehicles via Amish carts) is linked to his idea of dynamics – and apparent wish to analyze or retranscribe movement. This explains why he often refers to the 19th century chronophotographs of Muybridge and Marey, and to Italian Futurism and 20th century kinetic art.
I love cars, boats, skiing, biking, planes… as a means of opening up a different, dynamic vision, with which the eye is physically associated admits Veilhan.
