David McCabe
Nat Finkelstein
Gerard Malanga
Billy Name
Philip Halsman
Timm Rautert
Stephen Shore
Andy Warhol
Francesco Vezzoli
Jan Winkelmann
Andy Warhol: Stardom and Theatricality. Fame, glitz and glamour fascinated Andy Warhol throughout his life. The Needleworks of Francesco Vezzoli. Francesco Vezzoli's embroideries dealing with stars and divas from the fields of film, advertising, fashion and television constitute an important body of work in addition to his film and video works.
Gee how glamorous
Andy Warhol: Stardom and Theatricality
Featuring works by David McCabe, Nat Finkelstein, Gerard Malanga, Billy
Name, Philip Halsman, Timm Rautert, Stephen Shore, Andy Warhol and others.
Curated by Jan Winkelmann
Fame, glitz and glamour fascinated Andy Warhol throughout his life. The
notion of the star is in many different ways a central leitmotif in
Warhols oeuvre.
In relation to the notion of stardom, the exhibition Gee how glamorous
offers exemplary representations of the central production mechanisms and
strategies employed by Warhol in his life and art, as well as in the
complex universe of the Factory. During the past decades there have been
innumerable thematic shows of Warhols work, yet most of them offered
classical interpretations by focussing on particular themes and/or group
of works within his oeuvre. Gee how glamorous proposes a different view
of Warhols work from a contemporary perspective. It seeks to posit
questions of identity and its construction, self-perception and the
perception of others in relation to theatrical as well as documentary
strategies. Beyond paintings, films and photographs by Andy Warhol, the
exhibition also presents a variety of documentary photos, archive material
and recordings from Warhols immediate surroundings. The overall
presentation consciously doing almost entirely without origin! al works
by Andy Warhol furthermore investigates the value and aura of the
original.
In 2003, the second part of the exhibition will take place with the title
I have no memory Documentary Strategies in Andy Warhols Work,
examining the documentary aspects in Warhols oeuvre as a sort of
antithesis to its various theatrical mechanisms.
_______________
The Needleworks of Francesco Vezzoli
Curated by Jan Winkelmann
Francesco Vezzolis embroideries dealing with stars and divas from the
fields of film, advertising, fashion and television constitute an
important body of work in addition to his film and video works. He
addresses both, the glamour in which his models are shrouded, as well as
the related solitude and the transitory nature of fame.
In his works, Vezzoli refers to culturally standardized themes, as well as
social, medial and formal elements. These are employed as a reservoir of
fragments of reality fuelling personal myths. The masterfully embroidered
portraits combine two diametrically opposed worlds: a private/domestic
craft and the stars aura of glamour. The act of embroidering becomes a
metaphor of a type of 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.
Vezzolis exhibition in Leipzig was planned in conscious view of the
concurrent show Geehow glamorous Andy Warhol: Stardom and
Theatricality, and presents embroidered portraits of stars that refer
explicitly or more generally to Warhols world. For Vezzoli, Warhol, with
his almost obsessive fascination for stardom and glamour, is prototypic of
a means of dealing with and instrumenting a star myth. Vezzoli realised
a series of portraits especially for this exhibition in collaboration with
New York star photographer Francesco Scavullo.
Accompanying the exhibition, the book The Needleworks of Francesco
Vezzoli (Hatje Cantz Publishers ISBN 3-7757-1255-0) will be published.
Image: Francesco Vezzoli, The
End of the Human
Voice
Wed through Sat 2:00-8:00 p.m.
Sun 12:00 noon-8:00 p.m.
Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Karl-Tauchnitz-Str. 11
D-04107 Leipzig
Fon +49-341-14 08 10
Fax +49-341 140 81 11