Richard Rogers

Xavier Veilhan (1963~ ), an artist from Lyon, France, comes into the spotlight as one of the artists, who leads contemporary art in France. He simplifies the shape of human body or animals and creates them in a manner of mechanical production. The artist desires to reach out to the most essential form of the object he chooses, and to communicate with the audience on a relevant theme. His pieces on human body are targeting internationally well-known architects, such as Claude Parent, Norman Foster, and Ando Tadao. This work depicts the appearance of Richard Rogers, the architect who designed Centre Pompidou in Paris, but eliminates the details of his face and body in a bold manner. This runs counter to his other pieces on human body, as the work on the body of Norman Foster delicately embodies his unique facial expression in a simplified form. Like this, the artist proactively reflects the characteristics of each individual even in a simplified form of human body. This indicates that his works concentrate on mental values, such as the essence or existence that emerges at the end of simplification, rather than on minimalism with a focus on the value of “simplification.”