Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano Sculptures by Xavier Veilhan face to face at Centre Pompidou
28/09/2017.
[PAR] France
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
The Paris-based artist, Xavier Veilhan is the author of two faceted, stainless steel sculptures of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.
Sculptures of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers in the recent Xavier Veilhan solo show "Flying V" at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, France. Photograph by Claire Dorn © Xavier Veilhan / ADAGP, Paris, 2017. Courtesy of Perrotin
Sculptures of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers in the recent Xavier Veilhan solo show "Flying V" at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, France. Photograph by Claire Dorn © Xavier Veilhan / ADAGP, Paris, 2017. Courtesy of Perrotin
The French artist Xavier Veilhan has created two new sculptures of architects authors of Pompidou Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, that will be permanently installed next month in Place Edmond Michelet outside the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
"The faceted silhouettes of architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers command attention with their size and bright color. Their fading reduction transforms them into silent shadows.
These sculptures are a variation to the two homonymous pieces in the Architects series, created for Xavier Veilhan’s personal exhibition at the Chateau de Versailles in 2009. In October, they will join the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne and be permanently installed in the Place Edmond Michelet, across from their iconic creation, the Centre Pompidou, only a few months before the exhibition dedicated to the two architects there, " a gallery statement says
The sculptures were on show in an exhibition of Veilhan’s works at Galerie Perrotin in Paris (during September).
“The works are constructed in stainless steel and painted in tones of green, colors that recall the color code of the building and the time of its construction” a gallery statement says. Exhibited without pedestals at Perrotin gallery, they will mesure up to five meters high once installed in the public space, officially inaugurated during Fiac art fair week next month.
“Galerie Perrotin and Groupe Beaumarly, the owners of Café Beaubourg (located next to the Centre Pompidou), have financed the project; the two sculptures will be donated to the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou,” a museum statement says.
The building was opening in 1977, and this year is celebrating its 40th aniversary. In 1971, Piano and Rogers submitted their Centre Pompidou design to an architectural competition set up by the French government (together with Gianfranco Franchini and the engineers Ove Arup). Their proposal centred on “the construction of a building for information, fun and culture, a sort of machine, an ‘informative tool’”.
"The faceted silhouettes of architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers command attention with their size and bright color. Their fading reduction transforms them into silent shadows.
These sculptures are a variation to the two homonymous pieces in the Architects series, created for Xavier Veilhan’s personal exhibition at the Chateau de Versailles in 2009. In October, they will join the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne and be permanently installed in the Place Edmond Michelet, across from their iconic creation, the Centre Pompidou, only a few months before the exhibition dedicated to the two architects there, " a gallery statement says
The sculptures were on show in an exhibition of Veilhan’s works at Galerie Perrotin in Paris (during September).
“The works are constructed in stainless steel and painted in tones of green, colors that recall the color code of the building and the time of its construction” a gallery statement says. Exhibited without pedestals at Perrotin gallery, they will mesure up to five meters high once installed in the public space, officially inaugurated during Fiac art fair week next month.
“Galerie Perrotin and Groupe Beaumarly, the owners of Café Beaubourg (located next to the Centre Pompidou), have financed the project; the two sculptures will be donated to the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou,” a museum statement says.
The building was opening in 1977, and this year is celebrating its 40th aniversary. In 1971, Piano and Rogers submitted their Centre Pompidou design to an architectural competition set up by the French government (together with Gianfranco Franchini and the engineers Ove Arup). Their proposal centred on “the construction of a building for information, fun and culture, a sort of machine, an ‘informative tool’”.
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RICHARD ROGERS
Richard Rogers. (Florencia, July 23, 1933 - London, December 18, 2021) Since founding the practice in 1977, Richard Rogers has gained international reknown as an architect and urbanist. He is the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, recipient of the 1985 RIBA Gold Medal and the 2006 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (La Biennale di Venezia). He was knighted in 1991, made a life peer in 1996 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2008.
RENZO PIANO
Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 to a family of builders. He graduated Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and began to work with experimental light-weight structures and basic shelters. In 1971, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio and, together with Richard Rogers, won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Piano collaborated with engineer Peter Rice, founding Atelier Piano & Rice in 1977. In 1981, he established the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices today in Genoa, Paris and New York. Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honors in architecture, including; the Pritzker Prize; RIBA Royal Gold Medal; Medaille d’Or, UIA; Erasmus Prize; and most recently, the Gold Medal of the AIA.
Xavier Veilhan
Xavier Veilhan, born in 1963 and currently living and working in Paris, studied successively at the École Nationale Supérieure des Art Décoratifs in Paris (1982-1983), the Hochschule der Künste (Art University) in Berlin (under Georg Baselitz) and the Centre Pompidou’s Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques (1989-1990), run by Pontus Hultén.
Since the mid-1980s he has created an acclaimed body of works (sculpture, painting, installation, performance, video and photography) defined by his interest in both the vocabulary of modernity and classical statuary. His work pays tribute to the inventions and inventors of modernity, through a formal artistic language that mixes the codes of both industry and art.
He has a long-standing interest in the often-evolving exhibition space in which the visitor becomes an actor. He nourishes his material research with regular musical collaborations with artists like the band Air, musician Sébastien Tellier or pioneer composer Eliane Radigue.
In 2009, he set up the exhibition Veilhan Versailles in the Palace and gardens of Versailles. Between 2012 and 2014, he developed Architectones, a series of interventions in seven major modernist buildings around the world. His interest for architecture was taken to a new level in 2014 when he designed the château de Rentilly. In 2015 he directed two films that extend these spatial explorations: Vent Moderne (La Villette, Paris) and Matching Numbers (3e Scene, Opéra national de Paris).
A regular when it comes to projects in the public space, Xavier Veilhan has installed sculptures in various cities in France - Bordeaux (Le Lion, 2004), Tours (Le Monstre, 2004), Lyon (Les Habitants, 2006) – as well as abroad - New York (Jean-Marc, 2012), Shanghai (Alice, 2013), Séoul (The Skater, 2015).
He is represented by Andréhn-Schiptjenko (Stockholm), Galerie Perrotin (New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Séoul, Tokyo), Galeria Nara Roesler (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York) and 313 Art Project (Séoul).
Since the mid-1980s he has created an acclaimed body of works (sculpture, painting, installation, performance, video and photography) defined by his interest in both the vocabulary of modernity and classical statuary. His work pays tribute to the inventions and inventors of modernity, through a formal artistic language that mixes the codes of both industry and art.
He has a long-standing interest in the often-evolving exhibition space in which the visitor becomes an actor. He nourishes his material research with regular musical collaborations with artists like the band Air, musician Sébastien Tellier or pioneer composer Eliane Radigue.
In 2009, he set up the exhibition Veilhan Versailles in the Palace and gardens of Versailles. Between 2012 and 2014, he developed Architectones, a series of interventions in seven major modernist buildings around the world. His interest for architecture was taken to a new level in 2014 when he designed the château de Rentilly. In 2015 he directed two films that extend these spatial explorations: Vent Moderne (La Villette, Paris) and Matching Numbers (3e Scene, Opéra national de Paris).
A regular when it comes to projects in the public space, Xavier Veilhan has installed sculptures in various cities in France - Bordeaux (Le Lion, 2004), Tours (Le Monstre, 2004), Lyon (Les Habitants, 2006) – as well as abroad - New York (Jean-Marc, 2012), Shanghai (Alice, 2013), Séoul (The Skater, 2015).
He is represented by Andréhn-Schiptjenko (Stockholm), Galerie Perrotin (New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Séoul, Tokyo), Galeria Nara Roesler (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York) and 313 Art Project (Séoul).
