With his embroideries, the Milan and New York based artist Francesco Vezzoli deals with stars and divas from the fields of film, advertising, fashion and television. Vezzoli is a rising star among contemporary artists of the 21st century, becoming widely known through his participation in important group shows such as the Venice Biennale and a growing number of solo exhibitions. This first large publication focuses on one of his most popular and visually powerful bodies of work, the needleworks. Vezzoli addresses both the glamor in which his models are shrouded, as well as the transitory nature of fame and its related solitude. The masterfully embroidered portraits combine two diametrically opposed worlds: a private, domestic craft and the ultra-glamorous aura of the stars. The act of embroidering becomes a metaphor for an obsession located somewhere between the extremes of a contemplative means of appropriating reality and a love of detail. In his embroideries nostalgic memory and a distanced, removed stance are forced into a critical, reciprocal interrelationship.
Edited by Jan Winkelmann, introduction by Barbara Steiner, texts by Dan Cameron, Gianfranco Maraniello, essays by Jan Winkelmann und Francesco Vezzoli
