Lady Gaga, Eva Mendes, Milla Jovovich, Jessica Chastain and Courtney Love, are just a few of the many Hollywood celebrities the 43-years-old, Milan based, contemporary artist Francesco Vezzoli has worked with during his artistic career.
When Vezzoli, in the dark, walks by “his” cinema, Cinema Vezzoli—title and core of his latest art exhibition, a pseudo theatre with chairs and a big screen, all secluded by red curtains, at least three quarter of the room, comfortably sitting and enjoying the show, suddenly stands up and starts to follow him, as fans would stalk a Hollywood celebrity.
Photographers cannot stop taking pictures of him, in every hand gesture and each body position, while he is mingling and conversating here and there at the press preview held last Friday of Cinema Vezzoli that officially opened its doors to the public on Sunday and will be on view until August 11 at The Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles.
Curated by Alma Ruiz, Cinema Vezzoli is sponsored by Yoox, an Italian e-commerce group managing over thirty high fashion brands online sales. The company had worked with Vezzoli before on Con Amore—a limited edition series of work that served to reconstruct town hall of northern east Italian city Finale Emilia that was struck by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 2012.
Philippe Vergne, French native, freshly appointed MOCA’s new director earlier this year, first welcomed the press preview with a few words about MOCA and Vezzoli’s beloved and long lasting relationship that has nothing less exciting and passionate than a true love story between two human beings that begun in 2001, when MOCA first acquired A Love Trilogy: Self-Portrait with Marisa Berenson as Edith Piaf .
Eight years later, in 2009, the first “gift” directly from the heart of Francesco was given to MOCA: a faux fragrance. Clichè romanticisms? Not at all, since the name of the perfume is not Romance, or Trèsor, is Greed. In Vezzoli’s Greed, an ironic reinterpretation of a fragrance’s commercial, what appears to be a sapphic, jealous couple of women, driven by selfishness, cupidity and intemperance, fight recklessly over Francesco Vezzoli, or better, over Greed, a bottle of perfume with Vezzoli’s picture on it.
The fighting pair is respectively 2011 Academy Award winner for Black Swan Natalie Portman and 2012 Golden Globe award winner for My Week with Marilyn, Michelle Williams. Directed by Roman Polanski, the video featuring the two actresses can be currently watched at Vezzoli’s exhibition at MOCA Grand Avenue as part of a comprehensive video installation inside the cinema on display.
During the same year, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s 30th anniversary gala fundraiser was centered on Ballet Russe Italian Style (The Shortest Musical You Will Never See Again), the performance that saw Lady Gaga playing a pink piano with black butterflies, debuting her song Speechless accompanied by the Bolshoi Ballet and Vezzoli patiently needling Lady Gaga’s face, but not literally.
Ex New York’s Dia Art Foundation’s Director Philippe Vergne, commented “When I think of his [Vezzoli] work I think of Italian or European Cinema from the 50s or the 60s, the cinema of Pasolini, of Visconti, cinema that captured a culture in crisis, a culture in transition. The work is about seduction, the work is about ambiguity” Vergne continued “The work is about desire, is about sex. It’s about oppression. It’s about narcissism somehow, western culture narcissism.”
Alma Ruiz, senior curator at MOCA, was beyond vocal on expressing his love for Vezzoli, to the point that she jokely admitted she wrote a “little love letter” to Vezzoli, just like a lover, or a celebrity fan would, mentioning how they kept bumping into each other over the years and how much she cherished “a few dinners at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, [..]…a drink or two at the Chateau Marmont, a stroll to the Broadway theatre..[…]”
“It’s been a pleasure working with you, and I hope our relationship continues over the years,” concluded Ruiz introducing Francesco Vezzoli who welcomed everyone admitting “I hate being boring, I hate being bored, so I’ll try to make this as short as possible.”
After thanking everyone, rather than talking about his work, Vezzoli said “All I want to say is that my country is going through a fairly difficult moment. Contemporary art institutions are somehow shaky, troubled because of financial issues.We hope all these issues in Italy will solve in a few years.”
Vezzoli did not fail to get a little sentimental talking about his relationship with MOCA: “It’s just very warm and reassuring, and it gives me a lot of happiness to have been adopted by MOCA for so many years.”
Vezzoli ended his brief speech reiterating how important his relationship with MOCA has been: “MOCA acquired my work and then with the Gala, I was given this amazing opportunity of turning a social ritual into an artwork and a performance and now they are giving me all this space to lay out my dreams, my surreal dreams on a big table.”
Cinema Vezzoli is part of The Trinity, a series of three different art exhibitions, set to display in two different countries and three different museums, the National Museum of 21st Century Art (MAXXI) in Rome, Italy, the MOCA in Los Angeles aand the PS1 MoMA in New York, where The Church of Vezzoli is expected to be displayed sometimes in the fall, if all legal issues are fully defeated.
The deconstructed and deconsecrated ruins of a real 19th century southern Italy’s church are still supposed to be shipped from Italy to the States after being already stopped by Italian authorities for illicit attempted exportation of cultural heritage.
Cinema Vezzoli and Francesco Vezzoli with his constant narcissistic presence incorporated in his movie trailers, his commercials, and in his movie posters perfectly incarnate and depict our society, our world’s vulnerability, obsessions and deception that paradoxically can be fought and overcome only by becoming a victim of it, like all the walk of fame stars embroidered in tears who eventually saw la Fine of all of it.
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