"Michael"
Aluminum and steel 190 x 75 x 39 cm.
Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm.
Pilane, Tjörn, 2017.
Xavier Veilhan is one of France's most successful contemporary artists with a range of international exhibitions behind him. He is also a frequent visitor to Sweden and is represented by Andréhn-Schiptjenko in Stockholm.
Working across sculpture, film, painting, installation, and photography, Veilhan imitates reality and makes the viewer hesitate about what they see and question how they see it. He has collaborated with the hyped French band Air and has depicted and worked with world-famous artists such as Daft Punk and Neptunes, as well as with the fashion house Louis Vuitton. He also had a major exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in 2009.
Xavier Veilhan's public sculptures are in many cities around the world. In Sweden, his sculptures can be found in several locations, including his monumental work "Vårbergs jättar," which is Stockholm's most expensive public artwork ever. It is located in the Stockholm suburb of Vårberg and consists of two resting, monumental concrete figures in the artist's characteristic geometric style. The work was inaugurated in 2020, but since his debut in the 1990s, Veilhan has been working with large-scale installations in which he explores the world around us by constantly shifting between the illusory and the real. He sees art as a tool for understanding history, the present, and the future. Veilhan creates art in which he challenges our way of seeing by constructing spaces where the viewer becomes an actor.
Xavier Veilhan was born in 1963 and studied at L’École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs Paris and then at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin under Georg Baselitz. Veilhan's art can be found at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Mamco (Geneva), Phillips Collection (Washington), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), MAAT (Lisbon), and more. Veilhan represented France at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.