Xavier Veilhan interviewed by Dorothée King
On a summer day in 2022 I visited the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. I was drawn into and intrigued by the diverse simplicity and the all-embracing beauty of the colorful lines of Xavier Veilhan’s A3-sized ink on paper lockdown drawings, shown in his solo exhibition The Lockdown Drawings. So far, I only knew about Xavier’s colorful, bold and volumetric installations. I wanted to learn more about Xavier’s thought processes about the 2-dimensional space and his interest in lines, which seemed to leave the rigid formats of the paper to start collaborations on their own…
Dorothée
How did you decide to start the lockdown drawings?
Xavier Veilhan, Tripod, 14 Julliet 2020
© 2023 Veilhan / ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris
Xavier
Drawing has been a regular routine of mine since art school, where I was told to produce a lot. I always walk around with a sketchbook. I use my sketches to discuss ideas with my team. One important part of an artist’s work is to convince people that you are the right person. When I am talking about a project, sometimes I draw a sketch. At the same time, drawing is becoming more important for my artistic work because it is the closest step for an idea to be expressed from its totally virtual aspect to a more defined or proper shape. During the lockdown, since I did not have anything to communicate, I was sketching, like people used to do when they were on the phone. The idea with the lockdown drawings was to escape the paper, to expand the options of a sheet of paper. I am always interested in the dynamics of the line. In this particular year, I was working with A3 format paper, a standard format more related to the office than to the Beaux-Arts tradition, and tried to make it disappear.
Dorothée
What does that mean to you, to escape the paper? What happens to lines that move beyond the surface of the paper?
Xavier Veilhan, Dessin de confinement – Bambous
© 2023 Veilhan / ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris
Xavier
Most of the time, I was doing the same shapes. For example, the circle is a miracle to me. I wanted to exploit the circle with different means. How do we get from the line to the circle? As much as I am fascinated by the circle, I also wanted to break it, to expand it. I wanted to hit the limit of the page and maybe the limit of the room I was sitting in. So, most of the drawings are about expansion and escape. I enjoy the opening of the field. I wanted to make the lines so dynamic that you have the feeling that the drawing is expanding. Today, I think the expansion of the landscape is very much transformed by the digital. We are looking at our phones instead of looking at the landscape. But before that, the landscape was transformed by industry. In our digital days, the landscape or an image can move. As we learned from Einstein, you cannot consider yourself as a still standing point. You are a moving element as much as the elements around you. So, in my drawings, I am trying to represent that new state.
Dorothée
Can we talk about the colors you use? How do you choose a color?
Xavier Veilhan, Occam, Janvier 2021
© 2023 Veilhan / ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris
Xavier
It is very interesting to observe that we are almost color-blind. I think we only see 5 to 6% of the colors. As an artist, it is fascinating to consider that we are living in an environment where we are ignoring about 94% of visible light. People might be impressed by the colors you chose as an artist. But everybody is able to choose a color and to have an opinion about it. As an example, we choose how to get dressed. For public sculptures, I often use strong monochrome colors. If you use only one color, then there is only one question. Why is this green? If you are doing a large figure with a strong blue or any other color, it is like a silhouette that you cut out. It is a new space plugged into reality coming from your fantasy. You create a blank space. It is empty but it is also meant to be a space on its own.
Dorothée
How did you transfer from working in the three-dimensional space, your regular practice, to the two-dimensional space? And how did the lockdown drawings influence your artistic practice?
Xavier Veilhan, Retour, Février 2021
© 2023 Veilhan / ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris
Xavier
Typically, people are talking about three dimensions images. But that is incorrect because the definition of an image is that it be two-dimensional. It is the experience of a perspective, but we are not stepping in, as we would in a Renaissance painting. For me, the process of looking is the real experience. I think a sketch, a two-dimensional production of an image, can also be linked to a dream or desire. To support that process, it is very important to try to reduce the information of an image, the presence in a certain dimension, to get closer to nothing. Or to frame this idea differently, it is a huge question for me to define what the present is. And even more so to freeze one moment of the present into an encapsulated version. And like many artists, I am fascinated with the ability to use the right means of the right technique to have an object as an end result which is as abstract as the original idea.
Dorothée
How do you handle our constant overexposure to images, as an artist, who produces even more drawings and images?
Xavier
With all the digital images we have the ubiquity of ubiquity. The ubiquity of the digital. I think it is even a moral question to decide if and what to realize into reality. Our creations may be re-created endlessly.Our present and future are full of images, but also of objects. It might be a naïve thought, but when I have an idea, I contemplate if it is good enough to make an object out of it.
Dorothée
Could you expand on your working style as an artist?
Xavier
I already noticed, when I was a kid, that I was quite good in many different things, but not excellent in one thing. This is one of my regrets, that I never studied in a way that allowed me to become really good at one thing. I have to connect my ideas to other people’s skills. So, my skill is to be a connector of skills. As an example, that is what we are doing right now. I can answer your question, but I would not have the skill to structure the text. Editing is a big part of my job, to make choices.The collaborative skills of the people working around me in design, production, and technology allow us to touch perfection through craftmanship, though turning an idea or a concept into an object.
Dorothée
Could you tell us more about what you feel is the sociopolitical relevance of your art?
Xavier
The sociopolitical relevance is also a question about the environment. Ecology as an issue is replacing technology. Ecological questions lead me to use materials that are more environmentally friendly. Then also, I can’t really see what the impact of my artistic work is at the moment.
Dorothée
I see a lot of dogs and other animals in your sculptures. What role do animals play in your art?
Xavier Veilhan, Le Rhinocéros, 1999.
Xavier
When I was a kid, I had a dog. The dog slept outside. He ate our leftover food and got hardly any attention. Today, when you have a dog, everybody cares. I’m so touched and devastated when friends tell me that their pets died. These emotions have been mocked for years. Now, that we are destroying our environment and the diversity around us, there are these intense feelings between mankind and animals. I cannot ignore it. Gilles Deleuze was still making fun of these relationships. For writers such as Donna Haraway, these feelings are very significant. In short, there are so many feelings in that animal-man relationship, that as an artist I want to catch the secret of these feelings. I would love to know more about that mechanical process of what’s happening when you look at a puppy. As an artist, I ask myself, if I could only find a way to do artwork as effectively if I could find an aesthetic that works on people from age 2 to age 80.
Dorothée
Buckminster Fuller once said: “I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing – a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process.” What would you recommend to young art professionals who seem to be more interested in results, or objects, than the process of art itself?
Xavier
As advice, I like the Situationists and their way of getting lost in a certain environment. It is like floating on moving water. Also, I think important is to create a situation of desire. You have to have a need for certain forms, certain ideas, and certain discussions. You need an urge. It is a matter of desire. And also, how to deal with that desire, so that you do not burn out completely.
Xavier Veilhan (b. 1963) is a French artist who works with photography, sculpture, film, painting and installation art. In 2017, he represented France at the Venice Biennale. His extensive website has complete information about all his projects and news. More information about the edition of Xavier Veilhan’s Lockdown Drawings may be found through Les Presse du Reel here. Specific to this interview, an overview of the solo exhibition of Xavier Veilhan at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2022 can be found here.
Profile image by Giacomo Cosua, Creative Commons license.
Dorothée King is an author, educator, artist, designer, meditation teacher, and coaching specialist for well-being in arts and culture. She writes about contemporary artistic practices, multi-sensory aesthetic experiences, participation in the museum, personal and organizational development, and the pursuit of happiness in her everyday life in her short vignettes “the ones.” Her writing can be found in publications online and in print, and are collected on her website, here.
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