For Sébastien Tellier, music has never existed in isolation. Long before it becomes sound, it is space, light, silence, and matter. A composer whose universe has always been profoundly visual, Tellier approaches music as a porous discipline, one that absorbs architecture, contemporary art, cinema, and design to construct emotions that are felt as much as they are heard.
This sensibility finds a natural extension in his recent carte blanche at Galerie Perrotin, conceived in dialogue with artist Xavier Veilhan. Together, they imagine a project that deliberately resists categorization, blurring the boundaries between concert, installation, and exhibition. Sound becomes volume, silence becomes structure, and the gallery transforms into a space of both listening and looking—one that invites visitors to slow down, to wander, and to inhabit the work physically and emotionally.
In this conversation with Whitewall, Sébastien Tellier reflects on silence as an active force, on the fertile tensions between fragility and monumentality, and on the power of collaboration to shift one’s own practice. What emerges is a portrait of an artist in constant dialogue with space, with form, and with the unknown where getting lost is not a risk, but a method.
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
WHITEWALL: Your musical universe has always been deeply visual and narrative. Beyond the strictly musical field, which forms, works, or artists are currently nourishing your inspiration?
SÉBASTIEN TELLIER: Music is always my destination, but rarely my starting point. Today, I draw a great deal from architecture, contemplative cinema, abstract painting, and radical design. I’m drawn to simple forms that are charged with silence—works that seem to breathe. The work of certain minimalist or conceptual artists inspires me through their ability to tell stories without saying too much. I’ve always sought a diffuse, almost unconscious narrative, one that passes as much through light, material, or visual rhythm as it does through sound.
“The work of certain minimalist or conceptual artists inspires me through their ability to tell stories without saying too much,”
Sébastien Tellier
WW: Contemporary art seems to offer you a different relationship to time and silence. How do these dimensions influence the way you compose and think about emotion?
SÉBASTIEN TELLIER: Contemporary art taught me to embrace long durations and waiting. Silence is no longer a lack, but an active space—almost emotional. In my compositions, this translates into more deliberate breathing, suspended moments where emotion emerges precisely from what is not played. Thinking about emotion isn’t about explaining it; it’s about giving it room to exist.
Meeting of Minds: Collaboration with Xavier Veilhan
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
WW: Your carte blanche at Galerie Perrotin, conceived with Xavier Veilhan, is based on a dialogue between two very distinct practices. How did this encounter come about, and what made you want to work together?
ST: My encounter with Xavier Veilhan happened naturally, through mutual curiosity and admiration. We come from very different territories, yet we share the same obsession with form. The desire to work together stemmed from wanting to create a shared space where our practices wouldn’t illustrate one another, but truly engage in dialogue—sometimes even contradicting each other.
“My encounter with Xavier Veilhan happened naturally, through mutual curiosity and admiration,”
Sébastien Tellier
WW: Xavier Veilhan develops a body of work in which space, volume, and physical presence are essential. How did your sonic and performative language adapt to—or confront—his sculptural and conceptual approach?
ST: Xavier’s work is very embodied. In response, I sought music that wouldn’t be illustrative but structural. Sound becomes volume, vibration, an invisible presence. I adapted to the space and to the movement of bodies within the gallery. There were moments of fusion, and always a strong sense of mutual listening.
Sébastien Tellier on Blurring Boundaries: Concert, Installation, Exhibition
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
WW: This four-hands project blurs the boundaries between concert, installation, and exhibition. Was this a conscious way of questioning traditional categories of art and music?
ST: Yes, very consciously. Categories are reassuring, but they also confine. I like the idea of a project that doesn’t quite know what it is—concert, installation, exhibition. This ambiguity allows the viewer to position themselves freely, without instructions. That’s often where emotion emerges.
WW: Galerie Perrotin becomes here a space for listening as much as for looking. How did you imagine the visitor’s experience: as a spectator, a listener, or something in between?
ST: The visitor is neither entirely a spectator nor just a listener. They move, they feel, they compose their own experience. I imagined this moment as a passage: you enter with expectations, and you leave slightly shifted—perhaps more attentive.
WW: Your work often navigates a tension between intimacy and staging, fragility and monumentality. Is this a common ground you share with Xavier Veilhan in this carte blanche?
ST: Absolutely. This tension between intimacy and monumentality is central to my work, and I believe it also runs through Xavier’s. There is something very fragile in our forms, despite their visual power. We share a taste for contrasts—for emotions born from imbalance.
“This tension between intimacy and monumentality is central to my work, and I believe it also runs through Xavier’s,”
Sébastien Tellier
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
Photo by Jonas Unger, courtesy of Sébastien Tellier.
WW: Following this collaboration, do you feel your relationship to contemporary art—and to your own practice—has changed? Does this experience open the door to other artistic collaborations in the future?
ST: This collaboration strengthened my connection to contemporary art. It made me want to go even further into open, transversal forms, where music is just one element among others. Yes, clearly—it opens the door to other collaborations, perhaps even more radical ones, where I can continue to lose myself in order to better find myself.
