This lot is offered by Christie Manson & Woods Ltd
Christie Manson & Woods Ltd
8 King Street, St. James's, London, SW1Y 6QT, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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Lot Essay
Working in film, performance and needlepoint, Milan-based artist Francesco Vezzoli explores the darkness and glamour of the media machine. The present work is from a series which features the faces of actors associated with the 1959 Southern Gothic mystery Suddenly Last Summer, each set within a star-shaped, gilt-framed canvas. On close inspection, Vezzoli’s ‘Walk of Fame’ reveals a web of subversion and instability. Beyond lead actors like Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift, he also includes minor cast-members, as with David Cameron as Young Blonde Interne; this near-unknown is given a powerful aura of fame in his blue star. The series also features substitutions (Elizabeth Taylor is replaced by a picture of her dog), as well as actors who didn’t appear in the film: Vezzoli includes Spencer Tracy, whose 26-year affair with Katharine Hepburn has been claimed to be a cover for the same-sex desires of both actors. Truths and fictions begin to blur. Roleplay and drama weave in and out of real life, and a queer narrative threads through Vezzoli’s sources. Suddenly Last Summer’s plot centres around the mysterious murder of Sebastian, a closeted gay man; the star Montgomery Clift’s own homosexuality was an open secret; the movie was based on a play by Tennessee Williams and a screenplay by Gore Vidal, who themselves both had relationships with men. (Vidal is a favourite source for Vezzoli, whose video work Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s ‘Caligula’ debuted at the 2005 Venice Biennale). Finally, in his adornment of the black-and-white portraits with sparkling red, white and blue thread, Vezzoli leaves his actors weeping and wounded. David Cameron as Young Blonde Interne cries glittering blue tears, each bejewelled with a single white star, as a ruby stream of blood trickles from his nose. The embroidery makes the obscure actor into an all-American tragic muse, and also calls to mind the figurative sense of ‘embroidering’ or embellishing a story. Vezzoli weaves together complex layers of performance, beauty, romance, secrecy and violence in a shrewd restaging of Hollywood spectacle. Post Lot Text Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot. You must pay us an extra amount equal to the resale royalty and we will pay the royalty to the appropriate authority. Please see the Conditions of Sale for further information.
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