Exploring the unknown with Xavier Veilhain

Perusing through the overflowing shelves in his studio around the corner from Père-Lachaise, Xavier Veilhan picks up a stray cork, and says “sorry about this, we had a New Year’s party with over 200 people and bottles of champagne were everywhere.”

He says this, without a trace of pompousness and with a slight giggle. He describes the party to me with a nostalgic tinge in his voice and compares it back to the more carefree days of the 1980’s, when these events were common place in Paris.

It hits me then exactly where the charm of Xavier Veilhan lies. It is in his frank childlike curiosity, enthusiasm, and sense of adventure. Whether describing the fun he had on New Year’s Eve or explaining the impact of scientific discoveries of the past century on art, he speaks with an earnest passion for his work and for his little obsessions.

On his friendship with musician Sebastian Teller: “Our friendship led me more to a laid back attitude but at the same time I started considering new things, heavier things”. He says this in relation to the sculpture of Yuri Gagarin, the very first man to see the world as a whole from outer space.

“There was something very tragic, and even… pathetic about it. He was chosen because he was 1.57 metres to fit into the cockpit…” His boundless fervor and inquisitiveness about the universe, which can also be seen in his collaboration with the band Air, leads him to talk about the concept of gravity, saying “it is the first force we know of. It is a force we live with but know nothing about”. I could hear the inner workings of a mind in the midst of exploration and experimentation. Perhaps in the future we will see more of this.

After the success and grandeur of his recent showing in the palace of Versailles, Xavier will return to smaller scale stages in 2010. This does not mean, however, that his works will reduce in profundity. In fact, his work will be featured worldwide and showcase a newfound depth as well.

For Xavier Veilhan, the near future brings with it a plethora of exciting endeavors. Most exciting of all is his adventurous showing in Hong Kong.

“My pieces will be spread in the city. It is a city built on different levels and so the show will be like a ‘millefeuille’,” he expresses the way Hong Kong’s urban design varies in heights and levels by flattening his hands horizontally and moving them on top of each other, “there will be many sculptures on top of buildings. Many will be hidden. And le carrosse (the carriage) from Versailles will be exhibited in the middle of Hong Kong.”

“In Korea I will also show at Kukje, new and already produced pieces. And also at the world expo in Shanghai.”

It doesn’t seem like Xavier’s work will stop there. Starting this February, he will show pieces at the Peter Cook designed Kunsthaus Graz Museum for the Catch Me! Exhibition on speed and arrested time.

Also in exploration, Xavier would like to collaborate with a non-artist on what he calls a “dis-voir” (tell-see) project, to continue his investigation and fascination with astrophysics and its connections to man and art.

Combining his childlike zeal with a mature thought process, Xavier explains how his work in Versailles was like a fantasy: “it was oneiric…like a crocodile to a child who has never seen one. You hear about it and know about it, but it is never really like it.”

Much like gravity and the unexplainable universe, Xavier Veilhan has an ineffable force about him. We look forward to the near, and the far away future, to reveal just what an imaginative mind like his can create.

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by Henry Guyer
Photo by Arturo Oliva Pedroza

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