Francesco Vezzoli: a True Hollywood Story’ We May Well Ask Who Exactly Is Francesco Vezzoli

In the shadow of style: The invention of Francesco Vezzoli Gregory Burke Given the exhibition title ‘Francesco Vezzoli: A True Hollywood Story’ we may well ask who exactly is Francesco Vezzoli. Despite its explicit assertion to the contrary this very title immediately disrupts expectations of veracity in terms of a survey of the life and work of a contemporary artist. Rather, the appropriation of the E! True Hollywood Story moniker promises a no holes barred expose replete with revealed secrets and salacious reenactments. In short the title sets Vezzoli up as the potential victim of gossip, with its dependence on innuendo, misinformation and scandal. It raises the question as to who is telling the story with the presumption, given the contemporary art context and the artist’s oeuvre, that Vezzoli himself is at least complicit with its fabrication. While Vezzoli has included his artistic persona as a subject in much of his work, ‘Francesco Vezzoli: A True Hollywood Story’ suggests an autobiographic treatment to bring his persona centre stage. Nevertheless it also begs the question as to what Hollywood has to do with the contemporary Italian artist and what if anything can we expect to be true in the story that is to be told. The nucleus of the exhibition and the work that inspired the exhibition’s title, is the film installation ‘Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story!’, 2006. Vezzoli himself is the subject of the film through the tracking of his art career. Establishing his birthplace in Italy the film narrates his sojourn in London as a young art student at St Martins School of Art in the early 1990s, positioning his work in embroidery and needlepoint as a reaction to the largesse of the new wave of young British artists who were then invigorating the contemporary art scene in London. We learn of his interest in depicting through embroidery directors and actors and particularly female idols from the history of European and Italian cinema and music and we see animated stills of Vezzoli working on a portrait of Mario Praz an Italian art and literary critic. The film rapidly if not glibly moves through his work of the late 90s and first years of the current decade, introducing his early video works and his performance piece at the 2001 Venice Biennale Verushka was here, featuring the 1960s supermodel embroidering the image of herself that was published on the cover of Stern magazine in 1969 at the apex of her career. The narration and the recourse to witnesses and supposed expert critics set the simultaneously gushing and disdainful tone. A friend speaks with maudlin sentimentality of Vezzoli as a young boy being referred to as the little director, while a critic mocks and trivializes Vezolli’s early video works as “ a bunch of old Divas running around screaming at the top of their lungs”, while the film cuts to the manic and hilarious Valentina Cortese melodramatically performing the lyrics to the Beatles song "Help” in Vezzoli’s video The End. In keeping with E! True Hollywood tactics, which echo those of gossip, the film amplifies disparaging criticism through trivialization and the reduction of context. Yet if Vezzoli is being lampooned so too are his detractors and given that Vezzoli is himself directing if not narrating this story we are forced into a series of double takes. By simultaneously parodying his own work and reactions to it Vezzoli may be seeking to neutralize his most vicious critics, but in doing so he draws attention to the power of gossip and its ambiguous relation to notions of truth. Ultimately he establishes gossip and its impact on the reception of his work as a focus of ‘Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story! The narration draws on hearsay and rumour to make much of the impact of the video ‘Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula’, which debuted at the 2005 Venice Biennale. The work masquerades as a trailer for a remake of the controversial 1970s film ‘Caligula’ and features original stars Hellen Mirren and Adriana Asti and a host of other stars including actor, singer and supermodel Milla Jovovich and actor and rock star Courtney Love. Writer Gore Vidal plays himself while the costumes were designed by Donatella Versace. With such an alluring mix of sex, power, Hollywood and pop culture celebrity, fashion and literary credibility, all under the banner of contemporary art, the work was guaranteed to set tongues wagging. In that spirit we are told that it is Vezzoli’s “career defining work”, although this assertion is not substantiated beyond the suggestion of hype the work generated. What remains implicit but undeclared is that Caligula represents a significant shift in his work into the contemporary American and celebrity driven world of Hollywood. Most of his previous work involved European celebrities whose fame was established in a bygone era. There are exceptions, most of which refer to a previous era. Specifically there is Vezzoli’s interest in Andy Warhol, manifest for example in the photo series Francesco by Francesco, portraits taken of Vezzoli by Francesco Scavullo, known for photographing celebrities and described by Vezzoli as the glamour eye of “Interview” magazine. However, there is an important point of difference. While celebrity fascinated Warhol, he was not directly involved with Hollywood, choosing instead to create an alternative world of superstars. There are Warholian links too in Vezzoli’s video work ‘The End of the Human Voice’, 2001, which starred Bianca Jagger, famous for being associated with Warhol during the height of his involvement with the club Studio 54 in the late 1970s. Following the Warhol link comparisons can be drawn between the plot of The End of the Human Voice’ and that of Warhol’s film Lupe, 1965, which features an actress applying her makeup in readiness to commit suicide. Like Lupe, and a number of Warhol films from the 1960s, The End of the Human Voice’ is presented as a double screen projection. More specifically it references Jean Cocteau’s monologue The human voice from 1930, adapted for film by Roberto Rossellini in 1948, about a woman speaking her last words on the phone to the lover who has left her. There is here a link also to Caligula given that Gore Vidal worked with Franco Rossellini on the script, developing it from an unproduced screenplay by Franco’s uncle Roberto Rossellini. Given Caligula’s focus and Vezzoli’s background it is significant that the film was shot in Rome and that Vezzoli bases his remake in Hollywood, thereby inviting a comparison between the worlds of contemporary Hollywood and ancient Rome. Vezzoli himself has said that ‘the trailer conveys the decline and decadence of the Roman Empire. It is a tale of the degeneration of power and the greed for power. I thought that was a very appropriate project, considering the historical moment we are in” FV VF. Such readings are not elucidated in Marlene Redux. Rather Vezzoli is alluded to as being manipulative and consumed by the notoriety that Caligula bestowed on him. At this point the film veers into fiction, its twist being coverage of a fictional project by Vezzoli, an implausible remake of Maximilian Schell’s 1984 documentary ‘Marlene’, 1984 - a portrait of the German actor and cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich. Like the ‘Caligula’ remake, which exists only as a trailer, the ‘Marlene’ remake provides the film’s title, but exists only as recovered footage. The film goes wrong and Vezzoli’s character transforms into a failed Hollywood film director, who seeks refuge in male prostitutes, dark rooms, despair, and finally a clichéd death in a Hollywood swimming pool. With Caligula Vezzoli is to an extent critiquing the current situation for contemporary art and its increasing reliance on spectacle. He has noted in relation to the work that "For me, the art world has become a place that has turned itself, willingly or not, into some sort of entertainment industry," With Marlene Redux, Vezzoli transports his persona right into the heart of Hollywood and its associated lust for hyperbole, spectacle and melodrama. He becomes the subject of his own critique. However if Vezzoli reduces himself to caricature, as much as he places himself within that portrayal, he also stands outside as its architect. In this context his choice of ‘Marlene’ appears specific and appropriate to his double referencing of the histories of Hollywood and modern art and the double positioning of his own persona. Schell’s documentary features legendary weaver and textile designer Anni Albers in a cameo role; the unexpected conjunction of art legend and screen idol perhaps reflecting Schell’s personal interest in the Bauhaus. Even though Albers never met Dietrich, the coming together on celluloid becomes a fascination for the Vezzoli of Marlene Redux as it does for Vezzoli the artist. For the Vezzoli portrayed in the film the fascination leads to his downfall, while for Vezzoli the artist it provides an opportunity to explore the connections and their denunciations between high art and popular entertainment. Much of the work featured in the exhibition at The Power Plant relates to the ‘Marlene’ remake, as if the film exists. Large film posters advertise Marlene and Anni in a variety of screen roles. Hand painted and photo-mechanically blown up, the works were commissioned by Vezzoli from Italian painters who specialized in post war Italy in producing billboards advertising spaghetti westerns as well as films by auteur directors such as Fellini. The screen connection between Anni and Marlene is further fictionalized in poster works that have them starring in other films including one titled Bauhaus Engel, a variation on the Dietrich classic The Blue Angel.

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