I Did It First!

Francesco Vezzoli, "Sacrilegio" at the Gagosian Gallery in New York through March 12

Annie Leibovitz Photograph from Vogue

Recently I flipped through the January issue of Vogue and discovered a new show by Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, promoted with a sumptuous portrait of his mother holding him as a madonna and child by Annie Leibovitz. at the Gagosian Gallery in New York called "Sacrilegio".  The mixed media prints/embroidery/paintings are all images of models depicted as Madonnas, which struck me as hilarious since I have painted a few similar images.  Vezzoli, as it turns out, is quite an interesting artist, using similar ideas of desire and commodity with perfume, etc., and boasts an important resume including (duh Gagosian) the LA MoCA, the NY New Museum, and the London Tate Modern.  

I made these paintings because I thought it was a funny way to reference our obsessions with escapist imagery, either through religious icons or contemporary models.  It wade perfect sense to combine the two.  In the first one, I made a model holding another smaller model, and in the second I drew an ad where a girl model comforted a male model as if she were a Madonna.

Serena Cole Images

Madonna with Child, 2009

A New Madonna, 2009

Francesco Vezzoli Images

CRYING PORTRAIT OF NAOMI CAMPBELL AS A RENAISSANCE MADONNA WITH HOLY CHILD (AFTER CIMA DA CONEGLIANO), 2010

CRYING PORTRAIT OF TATJANA PATITZ AS A RENAISSANCE MADONNA WITH HOLY CHILD (AFTER RAFFAELLO), 2010

Images from Gagosian website

Damien, Damien

New Exhibition:  Damien Hirst, "Forgotten Promises", at the inaugural show of the Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong (January 18 - March 19)

The art world loves to hate Damien Hirst because we usually secretly despise those with more money than us.  Hirst as an artist is an ultimate symbol of luxury, decadence, and capitalism, something we attribute only to very few other artists, namely Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and perhaps Julian Schnabel.  But what others find an affront to the delicate, creative nature of art, I find amusing and even, dare I say it, a little genius.  

Hirst has become known for many scandals around the art world, particularly works involving taxidermy and formaldehyde, and of course, the million dollar diamond human skull piece, "For the Love of God". (Please see more info on wikipedia).  

For the Love of God

Hirst has simply, in my opinion, challenged the world to acknowledge its own vulgarities and hypocrisy.  After the market crash, Hirst recently took his finances into his own hands, and put his works in the major auctions himself, cutting out the middle man of a gallery, and reaping gigantic financial rewards.  He serves as an iconoclastic hero to me, for his repugnance to others as well as his Napoleon-istic sense of ambition.  

For Heaven's Sake

Damien Hirst is currently having a show which, true-to-form, is controversial.  Located in the Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, Hirst's best hits are there, like butterfly wing pieces.  The up-in-arms factor, however, is this child's-size human skull, decorated ala-his-previous-skull-piece, which apparently came in a set of Victorian collection of bones.   People, he didn't go out and kill a kid.  Calm down.  What I think he is trying to say is that these days simply pushing the envelope a little is not enough.  In order to reveal something about our society, you have to hold up the fetish/commodity/luxury mirror very close to show something really grotesque.  And yes, I know he probably did it for shock value and self reference.  That's the point though, right?

Damien Hirst website

Art Observed post 

Images from google