Exhibition of works by Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli on view at MoMA PS1

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY.- MoMA PS1 presents an exhibition of works by Francesco Vezzoli (Italian, b. 1971). Drawing on extensive research about the use of color in antiquity, Vezzoli collaborated with a team of archaeologists, conservators and polychrome specialists to paint five ancient Roman busts in the manner in which they would originally have been decorated. 

While white marble remains the quintessential material of ancient Greek and Roman statuary, extensive research has confirmed that ancient sculpture was painted in a vivid palette of yellows, blues, reds and greens. Dating from the first and second centuries A.D., Vezzoli’s Roman Imperial busts restore to contemporary imagination the decorated surfaces that have faded away over nearly two thousand years. Vezzoli collaborated with Dr. Clemente Marconi, Professor in the History of Greek Art and Archaeology at NYU and Director of the Institute of Fine Art’s excavations at Selinunte and Dr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, former Director of the British School at Rome, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and Director of Research in the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge. 

In much of his work, Francesco Vezzoli has mined Hollywood cinema, celebrity, and religion for inspiration. His 2011 exhibition Sacrilegio was presented in a church-like environment and incorporated digital copies of Madonna and Child paintings, in which the faces of Mary were replaced by those of supermodels. He has also created a fake trailer based on Gore Vidal’s Caligula, a mock political campaign featuring Sharon Stone and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, and a narrative of his own death in the manner of the TV program E! True Hollywood Story. Complicating this is the artist’s vested interest in architecture, craft, and design, and in particular in Anni Albers, one of the Bauhaus’ key figures, who influences Vezzoli’s own work with textiles. Working in video, installation, embroidery, and other media, Vezzoli combines the sacred, profane, and popular with a generous sense of humor and critical eye. 

Francesco Vezzoli (b. 1971, Brescia, Italy) studied at the Central St. Martin's School of Art in London and currently lives and works in Milan. His work has been exhibited at many institutions including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The New Museum, New York; MAXXI, Rome; Tate Modern, London; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow. Vezzoli lives and works in Milan.

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