Celebrity Skin

Celebrity-obsessed artist Francesco Vezzoli’s recent works have included a "pilot for a reality dating game that will never be aired" (Non-Love meetings, 2004, starring Catherine Deneuve and Marianne Faithfull) and a campaign for a perfume that will never be sold (Greed, 2009, starring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams). In the same vein, his latest project for Jeu de Paume is an advertising campaign for “La Nuova Dolce Vita: Social Life and the Imperial Age. From Poppaea to Anita Ekberg”—an ironically didactic exhibition that will never take place. In the trailer Eva Mendes embodies a range of female figures in the history of art, the inaccessible icons of an exhibition replaced by its “communication tools”. Today NOWNESS premieres the short film, while the full “press release” and campaign images are showcased at Dazed Digital.