Francesco Vezzoli
Almine Rech Gallery | London Savile Row
When Francesco Vezzoli had the five ancient Roman marble heads in his 2014–15 exhibition “Teatro Romano” at MoMA PS1 painted in garish colors that evoked their original polychromy, some critics expressed their relief that he had not also replaced the statues’ broken-off noses. Now the extravagant Italian artist has done just that, and the result, while no less controversial than “Teatro Romano,” turned out to be more thematically rich.
For “Francesco Vezzoli’s Eternal Kiss,” the missing noses of two white Roman Carrara-marble heads, which Vezzoli had again acquired at auction—one male, circa second century CE, the other female, circa 117–38 CE—had been expertly reconstructed. However, in contrast to the fuller polychromy featured in “Teatro Romano,” on this occasion, only the woman’s lips had been lightly tinted. The plastic surgery and cosmetic touch-up performed under Vezzoli’s direction served to prepare the two statues for their starring roles in The Eternal Kiss, 2015, a specially arranged display of this new sculpture that—not unlike historical films about Rome alluded to in the blockbuster-movie-style exhibition title—was partly true, partly fictional, and chiefly about romance. Inside a glass vitrine set on a spotlighted plinth in a space otherwise darkened by a thick red theater curtain, the two Roman heads were placed in such intimate proximity—noses touching—that they looked as if about to press lips against one another.
Vezzoli’s substitution of missing parts and mismatching of two separate heads from the same century recalled restoration practices of the early-modern period, when fragmented sculptures were routinely restored, regardless of historical accuracy, to make them more aesthetically appealing. In fact, the female figure’s chin had undergone reconstruction even before Vezzoli got his hands on her. But in his work, such aesthetic enhancement is part of a conceptual strategy. Mixing old and new, high and low, classics and cinema—in this case, the pared-down aesthetic of Roman sculptures and popular culture’s fascination with the romantic kiss—the exhibition raised questions not only about our relation to the art of the past but also, more broadly, about subjectivity in contemporary spectacle culture. While the male head was tilted back in anticipation, the woman’s eyes stared straight past him to see the couple’s reflection mirrored in the glass vitrine so that, rather than a fictional embrace between the two lovers, the viewer was more likely to imagine an outstretched selfie arm.
The glass vitrine mediated the relation, not only between the two lovers but also between the sculpture and its viewers. By placing The Eternal Kiss behind museum glass, Vezzoli invited intense scrutiny and admiration of the sculpture’s surfaces, complete with trademark melodramatic tear rolling down the Roman man’s chiseled cheek. While today, ancient Roman marble statues tend widely to be considered a sacred cultural heritage, the surgical procedure to which Vezzoli submitted them cast the two heads into the realm of cinematic mass spectacle. Modeled after images from popular culture, this confection, which Vezzoli, tongue in cheek, has called “nothing less than the most ancient sculpture of a kiss in existence,” was actually a copy without an original. In the world of cinema, films are sometimes promoted by making the director’s or even the producer’s name part of the very title (Fellini’s Roma, Andy Warhol’s Bad). In the case of “Francesco Vezzoli’s Eternal Kiss,” the inclusion of the artist’s name, beyond alluding to this cinematic convention, left the viewer wondering whether the individual subjectivity it implies is really the source or simply an effect of the machinery of spectacle.