Lot 70: FRANCESCO VEZZOLI

The End of the Human Voice
Each disc signed ‘Francesco Vezzoli’. This work is from an edition of 6 plus 2 artist’s proofs.

Duration: 15 minutes.

3 DVD double projection installation.

2001

Turin, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Francesco Vezzoli, 2002; Liverpool,Tate Gallery, Second Liverpool Biennal of Contemporary Art, 2002; Basel, Art 33 Basel, Art Statements, 2002; Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2003; Groningen, The Netherthands, Groninger Museum, Nocturnal Emissions/Nachtelijke uitspattingen, 2004, Philadelphia, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Experiments with Truth, 2004; Porto, Museu Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Francesco Vezzoli, 2005; Avignon, Collection Lambert, Le Paradoxe du comédien – Figures de l’acteur, 2006; Dijon, Le Consortium, Francesco Vezzoli, 2006

M. Beccaria, ed., Francesco Vezzoli, Turin, 2002 (illustrated); G. Celant, ed., Francesco Vezzoli, Milan: 2004 (illustrated); I. Gianelli, Francesco Vezzoli: Democrazy, Milan, 2007 (illustrated)

Private Collection

Francesco Vezzoli’s double-projection video installation La Fine Della Voce Umana (The End of the Human Voice, 2001) explores the nature of stardom through an intimate portrait of Bianca Jagger. Taking direct inspiration from Warhol’s 1965 film Lupe, Vezzoli exploits the Warholian icon and examines Jagger’s heritage as the glamorous 1960s star once synonymous with the Studio 54 era. The eponymous Human Voice is taken from the theatrical text ‘The Human Voice’ written by Jean Cocteau and filmed for the big screen by Roberto Rossellini in 1948. Vezzoli’s film, although a reversal of Rossellini’s Neorealist work (the set becoming a decadent and opulent atmosphere), nevertheless maintains a visual dialogue with the original work through its dramatic use of black and white imagery. The protagonist’s expressive and commanding physical features at once convey the tension and unrest of a subject left abandoned, a theme explored by Warhol in his film Lupe. Vezzoli forces the viewer, through the use of close-ups, to be witness to the character’s emotional distress and inner turmoil whilst she has a long and painful confessional conversation on the telephone. Jagger’s own status, as the glamorous star of yesteryear, parallels Vezzoli’s narrative of a stricken subject made to address past horrors down the telephone. Both the character in the film and the viewer are made to search through their personal traumas and repressed memories. The second video in this piece, in which Vezzoli himself plays the role of the faithless lover to Jagger’s ardent fidelity, sees the artist create a kind of selfportrait described in an atmosphere of almost Surrealist excess.