Francesco Vezzoli

Francesco Vezzoli was born in 1971 in Brescia. He received his artistic training at the prestigious Central St. Martin's School of Art in London. His work explores the power of popular culture, emulating the procedures of various media, and utilizing the sedative power of language to analyze the instability of the human condition. Early in his career, Vezzoli primarily used embroidery as a medium for his research, reinterpreting famous characters; notable examples can be found in the collection of Giuseppe Iannaccone.

Subsequently, his language expanded to include video works, such as a commercial featuring Roman Polanski for a fictitious perfume and a remake of the trailer for Gore Vidal's film Caligula, starring Vidal himself, Helen Mirren, and Courtney Love. Among the media Vezzoli employs to express his ideas are elaborately crafted site-specific performances dedicated to figures like Gioachino Rossini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luigi Pirandello, and Salvador Dalí.

The relationship between embroidery and cinema in Vezzoli's work is unique. His videos serve as a sort of parallel encyclopedia of film history, where embroidery connects and weaves together what has already been done, merging diverse images and characters into new forms.