FRANCESCO VEZZOLI’s art photographed by MANUELA PAVESI
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom: Italian photographer Manuela Pavesi recently bought the villa near Mantova where Pier Paolo Pasolini shot his last film. In this exceptional house, enrolling the artist Francesco Vezzoli, she re-enacts haunting scenes from this visionary film and summons up its lingering cinematic ghosts.
OLIVIER ZAHM — You bought the house where Pasolini shot Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom. What attracted you to it?
MANUELA PAVESI — I’m Italian and believe the Renaissance was Italy’s best era. Giulio Romano built the house in the sixteenth-century and the proportions are typical of the period. I love the forest around it. The 500-year-old trees. It’s located in a village called Villimpenta, twenty minutes from Mantova. The surrounding countryside is real Italian farm landscape.
OLIVIER ZAHM — How did you feel the first time you visited the house?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — Shocked and intimidated.
OLIVIER ZAHM — Manuela, do you know the story of the house? Why Pasolini ended up shooting Salò there?
MANUELA PAVESI — It was built for Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantova, then sold to a family who owned it until the nineteenth century. Pasolini had friends in Mantova, and he was especially close to someone who was at school with me, someone who later became a writer and poet. Pasolini gave him a part in the movie. Bernardo Bertolucci shot 1900 there, too.
OLIVIER ZAHM — Are you planning on renovating the house?
MANUELA PAVESI — I’m only going to correct some structural weaknesses, and then just what’s necessary. I want to keep it intact, because I love the bohemian atmosphere.
OLIVIER ZAHM — Francesco, Manuela has photographed recreated scenes from Salò at the house, and you posed as one of the characters. Was it difficult for you?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — I knew it would be a dangerous game and I accepted only because I trust Manuela and Purple so much. To be honest, I was afraid of looking a bit pretentious.
OLIVIER ZAHM — Does the picture of you on the chair refer to the scene at the end of the movie, the one that shows a voyeur looking at the torture garden?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — Definetely. It’s one of the most poignant scenes, since the whole movie itself is a voyeuristic experience for the spectator.
OLIVIER ZAHM — What is the most important scene in Salò for you?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — I think it’s the one we’ve recreated in these pictures, because it’s an ultimate metaphor for voyeurism and focuses on the responsibility of the spectator. Personally, I find Salò very arousing, but when certain scenes make me horny, I feel really guilty. I suppose Pasolini was trying to invoke that kind of conflict in his audience.
OLIVIER ZAHM — How has Salò influenced contemporary artists?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — Unfortunately, most artists today are afraid of discussing structures of power with the same clarity and honesty that Pasolini did.
OLIVIER ZAHM — What do you think of Pasolini today, Manuela?
MANUELA PAVESI — I think Pasolini was ahead of his time. He definitely was a prophet. A study of Conversazioni D’Amore is key to understanding what’s happening now.
OLIVIER ZAHM — Do you think the level of decadence in society, and in government in particular, has changed since Pasolini’s last film?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — I don’t think much has changed since the Roman Empire, except perhaps the waistline. And maybe not even that.
END
[Table of contents]
by Bill Powers
by Olivier Zahm
by Olivier Zahm with a text by Philippe Parreno
by Liz Goldwyn
by Bill Powers
by Olivier Zahm
by Juergen Teller
by Stacey Mark
by Alexei Hay
by Katja Rahlwes
by Emma Summerton
by Richard Bush
by Manuela Pavesi
by Jonathan Hallam
by Glenn O'Brien
by Manuela Pavesi
by Maurizio Cattelan
by Noritoshi Hirakawa
by Giasco Bertoli