Boussoles elles & eux Mirror, mirror, on the wall He’s based in Milan, but his works are universal. The irreverent Francesco Vezzoli delves behind life’s looking glass, exploring the invisible. The Collection Lambert in Avignon hosts his new show. How to create a portrait of Francesco So Vezzoli blurs the boundaries Vezzoli? It means confronting him on between art and film. He created a his own territory. The Delphic maxim true-faux commercial in which two “know thyself” holds no fear for the women (Natalie Portman and Milanese artist. He practices it in his Michelle Williams) fight with each own art. Here in his studio, a stone’s over Greed, a perfume with his pic- throw from the basilica of San Babila, ture on it. He loves the make believe, is the man of a hundred faces. The parody, distortion that undermines ones he creates with his hands, as if reality. Could he talk about his pas- shaping his own destiny. To be an sion for quirkiness and his video of artist is to be a magician. Lady Gaga at a piano painted by We could, of course, talk about the Damien Hirst, surrounded by danc- laid-back dandy casually dressed in ers from the Bolshoi? He nods his black, yet anything but austere. His head laconically: “I did it, I dreamed ease and spontaneity, his art that goes it.” The past is done and gone. He against the grain. After studying at smiles: “I’m not going to do it all over London’s Central Saint Martins, again with Katy Perry, am I?” Poster- Vezzoli shunned graffiti and took up ity? “What use is it to me here and embroidery. On his canvases, the now? What matters is the moment.” needle joins his ornate initials, He speaks almost perfect French, embellished like a sword. He has which he learned with Truffaut, sea- declared, “being an artist is a noble soned with irresistible Italianisms title—one I don’t entirely deserve.” He and charmingly retro turns of phrase: is mischievous and irreverent under “The drum roll of happiness is equi- his mop of unruly hair. Also, red is librium.” When not using himself as his color, right down to the rooibos he a subject (Self-Portrait as Emperor drinks, with milk in it. Hadrian Loving Antinous, 2012, an He speaks in maxims, oscillates between canvas, a woven portrait, mouth half installation in which two white busts stare insolence and wisdom, under the gaze of open, with a thin mustache like Christian each other down), he subverts icons. Is his two grandmothers on the wall, next to in Cyrano de Bergerac, and neatly trimmed this the imperialism of the image? No. It’s the hip-hop singer Nicki Minaj as the beard, like a young leading man. He might an ode to weakness. Icons cry too: Vezzoli Comtesse du Barry. And his works warn have left the portrait there, with its velvety embroiders tears onto these images. A viewers: a portrait is a dialogue with the black-and-white classicism; but this is stitch is a wound. Bleeding and crying are visible, whereas the self-portrait is a dialogue where his artistry kicks in: two fluorescent ways to express an inner life. “In art, tears with the invisible. Vezzoli creates multiple yellow flashes bring the languid gaze to are taboo. No one cries in Godard. Yet our images of himself, diffracting the possibili- life. Nostalgia meets pop culture. In The enemy is inside ourselves: our ghosts, our ties contained within a person. He reveals Mirror 2, they become blood vessels, in fears, our ambitions. With art, I liberate the image within an image with the agility which the pupils take root. A face is myself from a desire. Afterward, I feel of a contortionist and the mastery of an superimposed, echoing the spiritualism lighter.” In the face of power and frivolity, illusionist. The portrait’s face-to-face for- of early photography. It’s a play on real- the tear is a form of resistance. A pearl. mat is a lie: the gaze is an exercise in ity. Each face has its ghosts, which “The tear already represents progress for trompe l’oeil. “All the world’s a stage,” appear through the weave of Vezzoli’s emotion. At the Louvre, I haven’t found wrote Shakespeare. “Today, the stage is in canvas. In F BY F Before & After 2, he a single portrait with tears,” reveals the the telephone,” says Vezzoli. His first appears androgynous, adorned with a guy who hates gifts, unless it’s a rose- dream? He ponders the question. “Seeing bow tie. Vezzoli offers himself to our scented perfume. his uncle from America. And Studio 54,” gaze. F By F Happily Ever After 1 fea- The man before us shimmers like a rose temple of the New York underground tures the same portrait but with tears. window. Vezzoli is a kaleidoscope. Any scene, where Dalí once turned up in mink. Vezzoli makes himself vulnerable. sentence you write about him could be Since then, his whole life has been an The man is an expert in mirages. In a soci- crossed out—like his portraits. Therein apparition. In the series The Mirror 1 , he ety where images have great power, believ- lies the genius of the myth—which he printed images of himself on cotton ing and seeing are almost synonymous. continues to embroider. True Colors, tête en marbre duSatyre se reposant, fin du I siècle après J-C, 2014.er True Colors, marble head after theResting Satyr, late 1st century AD, 2014. 76 ilozzeV ocsecnarF ©