Xavier Veilhan: The Audience (2021) - Tokyo, Japan
French artist Xavier Veilhan presented a permanent, site-specific public installation commissioned by the IOC, entitled The Audience.
The Audience pays tribute to the people who gather in celebration of the Olympic Games—both onsite and digitally around the world. In 2021 in particular, the audience was the missing star of the Olympic Games; this sculpture gave presence to those who may have been absent physically but attended the Games in spirit, according to the artist.
Xavier Veilhan’s life-sized sculptural work consists of five human figures, with a scale game and a panel of colours that give a twist to traditional statuary art. The people depicted are of various ages, genders and nationalities. Each one of them is unique. However, united together, they embody the idea of a small ‘world village’ and illustrate universality as a core value of the Olympic Games. To emphasise this relationship, the artist plays with the colours of the Olympic rings.
The artwork was funded by Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd., Official Partner of the Olympic Agora Tokyo. It was inaugurated in Nihonbashi in central Tokyo on 30 June 2021.
Gallery
The Artist
Born in 1963 in Lyon, France
Lives and works in Paris
Xavier Veilhan has since the late 1980s created an acclaimed body of work spanning sculpture, painting, installations, performance, film, and photography.
Steeped in a language of modernity and the related themes of speed, motion, and urbanism, as well as that of classical statuary, his work pays tribute to the inventions and inventors of our modern times through a formal artistic vocabulary that blurs the boundaries between industry and art.
Xavier Veilhan produces exhibitions to challenge our perception through the creation of ambient spaces in which the audience becomes the protagonist. He invites spectators to re-discover their surroundings and observe the continuum of forms, contours and dynamism that recodes the space of the exhibition.
Xavier Veilhan’s work has been exhibited in leading art institutions across the world, including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Mamco (Geneva), the Phillips Collection (Washington), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), and MAAT (Lisbon). In 2017, Veilhan was chosen to represent France at the 57th Venice Art Biennale. Large permanent works by the artist have been installed in the cities of Paris, Stockholm, New York, Tokyo and Séoul, among others.
“The sculpture is intentionally a tribute to the audience of the Olympic Games, going beyond the sporting feats that are usually celebrated, bringing the focus to non-heroic figures to highlight the importance of the public”.
Xavier Veilhan
“This year in particular, the public - the audience - is somewhat the missing star of the Olympic Games. The Audience is not only the title of my work but is also the summary of the current situation that we are all undeniably living through. It is for me a reason to give existence to this public who will be absent physically, but all the more watching throughout the world. The sculpture will be its ambassador.”
Xavier Veilhan about The Audience (2021)