Arcana:

(VEZZOLI, FRANCESCO) (GAGA, LADY). Vezzoli, Francesco, Klaus Biesenbach & Donatien Grau. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2011. First Edition. 4to. Illustrated Boards. Artist Monograph. Fine/No Jacket - As Issued. 48pp, profusely illustrated in color and b&w. Designed by Goto Design. Francesco Vezzoli's art often embodies celebrity, spectacle, and appropriation, and in this brand new publication "Ballets Russes Italian Style", one gets all three in spades. Presented as the centerpiece of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th anniversary gala fundraiser in November 2009, Vezzoli's "Speechless" featured Lady Gaga clad in costumes by the artist and Miuccia Prada, a mask designed by Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, and a hat by Frank Gehry performing at a Damien Hirst butterfly-adorned Steinway grand piano with members of the Bolshoi Ballet. This stylishly produced tome published in conjunction with the just opened "Francesco Vezzoli: Sacrilegio" at New York's Gagosian Gallery shows the preparatory sketches for the piece, photographs of the Lady in the MoCA galleries and onstage, and the resulting Gaga-centric artworks that "borrow" liberally from Rodchenko, DeChirico, and others. If the ultra-baroque meets Russian Constructivism and Metaphysical painting with a dash of "Poker Face" is your thing, then this is the book for you! A brand new, pristine example still in the publisher's shrinkwrap. 1-935263-16-1 Inventory Number: 019195