Francesco Vezzoli, the Italian artist and filmmaker known for his satirical portraits of fame, opens his first museum exhibition in China at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai. Titled Divas, the exhibition runs from March 30 to June 2, 2025. Curated by Nancy Spector and Shai Baitel, Divas offers an homage to the legends of 20th-century European and American cinema, mixing nostalgia and reverence through Vezzoli’s signature embroidered works.
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Vezzoli’s artistic practice disrupts the glamour of film icons by stitching fragility into fantasy. Embroidering the faces of iconic divas, ranging from Sophia Loren to Anna Magnani, he exposes the tension between the mythology of stardom and the human reality behind it. Known for inserting contemporary irony and personal reflection into his portraits, Vezzoli continues this dialogue at MAM Shanghai by pairing each embroidered work with a poster of a significant film starring the depicted actress. These visual pairings create a corridor of dual perspectives, one historical, one intimate.
Spanning 25 years of Vezzoli’s career, the exhibition also serves as a cinematic timeline shaped by his own upbringing. “The exhibition unfolds along two interwoven trajectories: a historical narrative and a deeply personal reflection,” Vezzoli states. With roots in movements like Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave, the show maps the influence of cinema on both culture and self-perception.
Vezzoli is no stranger to major international art stages. His provocative reinterpretation of Caligula appeared at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and he has shown work at the Whitney Biennial, Performa, and the Bienal de São Paulo. These presentations often combine elements of film, theatre, and visual art, a multidisciplinary approach that continues in Divas, where needle and thread become instruments of cinematic reflection.
The layout of the exhibition, structured along two elongated corridors, emphasizes its dual ambition, to create an immersive experience rooted in both public history and private memory. As viewers move between the embroidered portraits and original posters, they are asked to consider cinema not just as cultural production but as a mirror of longing, identity, and performance.
Shai Baitel, Artistic Director of MAM Shanghai, emphasizes the philosophical impact of the show: “In Divas, Vezzoli reveals hidden truths within each portrait and invites viewers to question what is real and what is performative for the screen.” Through embroidered portraits and cinematic references, Vezzoli reflects on fame as both spectacle and sentiment, reworking the past with emotional precision.
