Versailles is perhaps one of the last places you would expect to open its palace doors to contemporary artists, and certainly last year’s Jeff Koons show met with its fair share of controversy. Stuffy patrons protested at the gates and said silly things like “contemporary art fosters distraction and destruction of the perfect whole.” Luckily, a few noses stuck up in the air isn’t enough to deter the annual project, which features Xavier Veilhan this year.

Visitors are first confronted with a large-scale steel carriage pulled by six horses, in regal purple of course. It’s a fitting follow up to Koons sculptures, but the tone that Veilhan creates is definitely more site specific – you immediately think of French aristocracy fleeing the château at the height of the revolution. While Veilhan has several pieces inside Versailles, its his work outside that is most striking. The contrast between the location and the art is an obvious observation to make, but its staggering nonetheless.

For more photos, see the photos at The Selby.