Paperback, colour and black and white illustrations, 80 pages, W170mm x H220mm
On the occasion of Xavier Veilhan's first monographic exhibition in a
Parisian museum in over ten years, the Centre Pompidou invited him to
create a three separate but related bodies of work: a solo exhibition
in the entire gallery of the Espace 315 (the new contemporary art space
opened last March); a monumental sculptural installation in the public
spaces of the Forum (on show from 20 October 2004); and Veilhan's
first-ever theatrical work, to be presented as part of the Spectacles
Vivants series (on 18 September 2004).
Xavier Veilhan is one of the leading figures of the contemporary French
art scene. His work embraces a broad range of media and plays upon
various systems of representation: from a sculptural practice rooted in
the tradition of public statuary to digitally generated imagery. The
objects Veilhan creates are simultaneously anachronistic and high-tech,
reflecting both traditional and futuristic approaches.
Since the early 1990s, his oeuvre has been marked by an increasing
interest in the recording of reality via photography and the moving
image. Digital imaging processes play a central role in his
relationship to representation.
For his exhibition in the Espace 315, he juxtaposes and compares
various modes of apprehension and representation of reality, from the
metaphor of the camera obscura to the pixellisation of his Light
Machines and Paysages Fantomes. For the exhibition he specially
designed an environment occupying the entire space; he has even used a
technique to create an optical illusion that appears to extend the
space into infinity.
Composed of entirely new works produced in collaboration with the
Centre Pompidou, the exhibition combines sculpture, architecture, film
and photography. What Veilhan has done is to create not only an
original environment, but also a setting in which to exhibit his work.
This combination of a transformation of the space with the works
themselves implies different perceptual modes and experiences of space
and time. Against the backdrop of an accelerated perspective, a
monumental sculpture is frozen in its upward movement, while new
pictures offer digitised phantom landscapes and a new Light Machine
provides animated images.