Jean-Marc @ Sixth Avenue & 53rd Street
From: Huffington Post, Word on the Street: French Giant
French artist Xavier Veilhan sometimes draws comparisons to Jeff Koons for his brightly colored, radically simplified sculptures -- though without the kitsch and self-aggrandizement. Both deal with monumentality and both locate their imagery within a type of popular, or collective imagination. The two are also among the elite group of contemporary artists who have been invited to exhibit at the Chateau de Versailles.
Veilhan, whose work also includes painting, photography, performance and filmmaking, often experiments with technology to reveal different aspects of perception. A 3D scanner used to make sculptural portraits of friends and colleagues is a favorite tool of his investigation, and was the starting point for his new permanent installation in midtown Manhattan, at the corner of 53rd St. and Sixth Avenue.
"Jean-Marc," the blue, steel, multi-faceted giant, commissioned by RXR Realty -- whose offices occupy the block -- is the portrait of fellow French artist, Jean-Marc Bustamante. Though angled and futuristic, the frozen geometries of the drapery and contrapposto stance nonetheless look part Balzac, part David -- a profile that seems as timeless as it does classical in this new iteration.