Artist Xavier Veilhan takes on Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein house
Xavier Veilhan, the Paris-based artist who last year turned Richard Neutra’s VDL House in Silver Lake into a startling temporary gallery and later transformed Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 21 into a ghostly, smoke-filled, one-night-only installation, took over John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein residence Wednesday evening for the third installment of his “Architectones” series in L.A.
Veilhan showed four works, the centerpiece of which was “Rays,” a streamlined web of white cords strung over the pool, from roof to water’s edge. It was an hommage, the artist said, to the architectural lines that Lautner created and a way of further revealing the house’s beauty without obscuring its spectacular view.
PHOTOS: ‘Architectones’ at the Sheats-Goldstein residence
“It’s interesting how the house is playing with perception,” said Veilhan, his face aglow by the water’s surreal green light and the strains of “Acetate No. 3,” the soundtrack for the installation composed by Nicolas Godin of the electronica band Air, floating through a wall of glass. ”What is inside and what is outside is not clear.”
Indeed, earlier in the evening as Veilhan and “Architectones” curator Francois Perrin introduced the installation, the white cords reflected not only on the pool’s surface but also on all that glass. In the light of dusk, the mirroring effect created an interesting illusion for the crowd of about 100 gathered inside the living room, where it was difficult to discern where the installation began and where it ended.
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Metaphorically, “Rays” -- part of a series of strung-cord installations by the artist -- read as both bridge and barrier at the Lautner house, a 1963 concrete-and-glass playground that juts over a Beverly Crest hillside planted as a tropical Xanadu. Architecture fans may see parallels with Santiago Calatrava’s streamlined bridges, connections from here to there. But the effect also was that of a barrier, a boundary between this sunning-and-swimming retreat and the urban sprawls beyond, a physical manifestation of the separation between this hillside perch and the flats below. That tension -- openness versus seclusion, community versus privacy -- that has long played out in L.A. home design appears here in rubber, polyester and steel.
Veilhan’s other installations included “Pyramids,” a 32-inch-tall wood sculpture that echoed the triangular concrete patterns in an awning above the pool; “The Architect, the Owner and the Dog,” a chess-board-size bronze scene depicting Lautner, the home’s colorful owner, James Goldstein, and his afghan; and “Lautner,” a 6-foot-4 statue in the master bedroom. The green aluminum figure stands in a contemplative pose, perched at the leading corner of the cantilevered platform, the walls of glass pulled back and open to the jungle spilling down below.
The Sheats-Goldstein work is open for private viewings Thursday and Friday. Veilhan and Perrin have more on the series at their “Architectones” site.
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