David n°1, 2021 Mortier minéral composite, pigment, vernis polyuréthane. abachi;Composite mineral mortar, pigment, polyurethane varnish, abachi wood 75 x 40 x 29 cm ; 29 1/2 x 15 3/4 x 11 3/8 in. Édition unique Courtesy Perrotin Photo © Claire Dorn ; Xavier Veilhan / ADAGP, 2021

Xavier Veilhan is a multidisciplinary artist working across different mediums, including sculpture, installation, painting, and photography. The French artist is known for creating site-specific, public artworks that complement architecture and alter how viewers look at their surroundings.

His newest solo exhibition, Autofocus, will be on view at Perrotin in New York from Novermber 3 through December 23rd. Autofocus is a departure from Veilhan’s typically faceted, futuristic shapes. Exploring new materials, Veilhan produces sculptures that have a blurred, eroded effect, becoming ghost-like, like a shadow of someone passing by. The new collection will include large-scale mobiles, human-scale sculptures, and wall sculptures. Flaunt sat down with the artist to discuss his new work and what it means to be an "artist of the social.”

You call yourself an “artist of the social”. What do you like most about creating public artwork?

I think what motivates me, what moves me the most is probably to be confronted to the public in real life. But also to the public area without the filters that are usually existing between galleries, museums and the audience. Then, setting an object in the public area goes into competition; not between other artworks but with elements of the reality like cars buildings and people.

Your new exhibition Autofocus marks a departure from your typical futuristic shapes, opting for more blurred-like sculptures. What motivated this change?

Actually it’s a new development of the same idea. The typical thing in my sculptures in both mentioned styles is the simplicity of the shapes and the reduction of them to the attitude more than the details. Like faces, which I am not very interested in. I am neither interested in psychology. On the contrary, the attitude is what we live with so when we are walking in the city surrounded by other people that we don’t know, and without communicating with them, there is still an exchange. So the attitude but also the position are very important and meaningful to me.

The attempt with this new series is to have soft shapes without ages, and synthesize the position of the people in space. I am very interested in the aura of the human body. We have something very specific in our mind that recognizes the human shape. A human silhouette will have more impact than anything else, probably because the most primitive part of our brain has been told to know whether this thing appearing in my visual field is a man or something else.

You began developing this installation while you were working in Tokyo. Does your environment regularly impact the art you create?

Yes, it does. But the most important influence is probably technology, like digitalism. You can see that all my projects are going through digital art at some point. And I try my work to be aware of that and to integrate the change of technology like a mark you can see in different periods of art History. My wish is to engrave the technology of today the strongest possible.

Do you have a favorite piece featured in Autofocus ?

Not really because I usually like the newest the most, and which I am the most excited about. But in this case everything is new including the process and the technology involved, even the size of the space is quite new for me. So, I can just say that the most dimed down sculptures are the ones that I love the most. It was funny to see some of them before being on the pedestal because most of them are presented on quite high ones. But when they were on the same ground as the viewer they were very impactful even if they were completely still of course.

It’s what I try to reach. This kind of impact I call ballistic. Like shooting with a gun and you want to project something in space and reach a very small area. That’s what I try to do visually and artistically and maybe with this regard it would be... That’s a good question actually, which one would I take to my home?

I think it’s too big for my home but one of the Violetas probably. It’s funny because thinking about this question, I realized I always have been thinking about the group of statues interacting, and not one by one. Although we really worked on each one like a polished gem. It’s a lot of simplification and work on the details of those sculptures. We used a 3D scan made of several millions of points that are connected together. At the end of the day we use only around one four thousandth of this data but the precision of the data we start with allows us to take any direction we want to. The quality of the scan allows it to go in any direction. It’s funny to see all the scans that we have. We are very picky on the details leading to pieces that look like stones on the beach.

What’s next for you in terms of your work? What’s next for you in terms of your work?

I don’t know. I am working more and more on performances and music performances, music and movies. I started to play along with some professional musicians, and I like it. It's very exciting, because it brings the chronology into the process of art.

Visual art has its own chronology, and it’s a different one than music and performances. There is a before and after, but it’s one moment and it’s so precise that it has no present. When your mind is experimenting it’s quite often already away. I like to use this momentum or this non instant, this “non lieu”, “non places”.

I think it’s very exciting to have these shifting moments. It’s the way I experience art. There is before seeing this piece and after seeing it.But to deal with music or movie, even performances leads you to a certain chronology and sense of time which is quite far away from my main field which is visual art.

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Xavier Veilhan | 'Autofocus'

by Madison Douglas

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