Exhibition
Xavier Veilhan collaborated with the students of the Lycee Technique Gaston Barre in Niort (France) for an entire year to create a replica of the famous Model T Ford.
Through a process of detailed technical craftsmanship, the very motorcar which was originally conceived to be mass-produced on a conveyer belt was painstakingly recreated by hand. Comparable with Veilhan's earlier works, such as the driving object Le Véhicule (also on display, a vehicle which has been reduced to its most elemental components) the La Ford T also stands as a synonym for economic, and socio-political changes. Veilhan uses the example of a product from the early phase of industrial mass production to demonstrate the difference between a holistic comprehension of the structural inter-connections of our lives and the reduced scope of action which industrial society imposes on the individual.
In his photographic series entitled Helicopter, Veilhan depicts a helicopter alighting upon a lawn, specially prepared with concentric circles, at the park of the Villa
Medici in Rome. In this work the sculptural qualities of the helicopter and the artist’s fascination with technology amalgamate with his interest in strategies of staging ostentatious presentations of wealth, power and fame.
