Francesco Vezzoli - Take my Tears

The self-portrait is a genre that has been widespread throughout the history of art up to the present day. The first examples date back to the Middle Ages, but not as an independent genre, but rather contextualized within a work. As the artist's self-awareness and role developed, self-portraits, especially those set within other works, began to gain popularity during the Renaissance. The first examples of independent self-portraits, however, date back to the 16th century. Often, the artist's self-portrait serves as a sort of stylistic manifesto for the painter who conceived it. This silkscreen, in which artist Francesco Vezzoli portrays himself, brings to bear all the distinctive elements of pop aesthetics, contextualized within a contemporary reflection on the Brescian artist's media communication.

Much of Francesco Vezzoli's work begins with an artistic elevation of contemporary pop icons. Recurring subjects in his work are mainstream faces, reframed in an aesthetically refined yet ironic way. In this case, the artist himself elevates himself to a pop icon by creating a self-portrait. Formally, the connection to pop aesthetics is undeniable, as the figure is rendered with a concise and dry drawing that highlights the plastic qualities, clearly drawing on the language of comics. This manifesto-portrait of the artist cannot fail to feature the true trademark of Francesco Vezzoli's work: the tears streaming down the faces of his subjects. It is here that the conceptual and ironic component of this artist's research unfolds. The tear is a symbol of inner depth but, at the same time, an element of media appeal in today's media. For this reason, in Vezzoli's works, tears are always reproduced, with a subtle, trashy irony, through the use of "precious" and flashy materials. While in his assemblages the artist has also explored crochet, in the immediacy of his graphic work he prefers to use glitter, which, while maintaining the conceptual richness of his pop interpretation, guarantees the silkscreen's excellent aesthetic impact.

Francesco Vezzoli (Brescia, 1971) lives and works between Milan and New York. His primary medium is video, often featuring pop icons or television stars. Vezzoli engages in a sort of rethinking and reworking of media ephemera, while also incorporating references from high-brow cinema, occasionally re-presenting the faces of now-almost-forgotten actors and actresses. He has participated in the Venice Biennale on several occasions. He also participated in the 26th São Paulo Biennial in 2004 and the Whitney Biennial in 2006. Vezzoli has exhibited in the most important national and international spaces: the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York (2002), the Castello di Rivoli (2002), the Fondazione Prada in Milan (2004; 2005), the Tate Modern in London (2006), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2007), the Kunsthalle in Vienna (2009), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2009), the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2009-10) and the Garage CCC, Moscow (2010). In 2013 he was the protagonist of three solo exhibitions at the MAXXI in Rome, the MoMA PS1 in New York and the MOCA in Los Angeles.

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