“Mobiles”, a solo show of Xavier Veilhan organized by Galerie Perrotin, gathers a group of recent or never-seen-before mobiles of varying shapes and dimensions.

Xavier Veilhan creates exhibitions in the form of wanderings and site-specific interventions, in cities, parks or living environments (Veilhan Versailles, Palace of Versailles, 2009; Veilhan at Hatfield: Promenade, 2012; Architectones, Los Angeles, 2012-2013). Veilhan is a multidisciplinary artist. He is possessed of a highly personal artistic universe inhabited by a heterodox range of characters, objects and animals. Through complex devices, the playful component emerges as a fundamental element in evoking a reality populated with symbols, metaphors and other semantic ambiguities. Veilhan turns his gaze on the past to deconstruct classical genres and iconographies: a reinvention of the equestrian portrait, the setting up of a distinctive bestiary based on traditional canons or the transformation of vanitas from the imaginary into objects akin to a pop aesthetic, in an approach that seeks communication with the viewer in an overall experience.

For Veilhan, the possibilities of representation and the art of the exhibition are part of his leitmotif, the ultimate live performance where his works function as part of a greater machinery.

Photograph: Stephen Ambrose

Image: © Xavier Veilhan, Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong & Paris