Purple Magazine
— Purple #45 S/S 2026
The New Glamour Issue
francesco vezzoli
THE OTHER SIDE OF GLAMOUR PAIN SORROW SOLITUDE AND THE VIOLENCE OF EXPOSURE
interview
by OLIVIER ZAHM
portraits by CARLOTTA MANAIGO
Francesco Vezzoli, portraits by Carlotta Manaigo<span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span>
OLIVIER ZAHM — Your interview for this Purple issue on glamour is particularly important. You are one of the rare artists — alongside Andy Warhol or later figures like Elizabeth Peyton in the 1990s — to have fearlessly embraced celebrity culture, a world so often dismissed as the glorification of superficiality, decadence, artifice, and vanity, to say the least. Let’s start at the beginning, to understand how deeply you’ve immersed yourself in this world of glamour — not just as artistic material, but also as a space you truly inhabit. You come from Brescia, in northern Italy, and then you moved to London to study art at Central Saint Martins, right?
FRANCESCO VEZZOLI — I went to…
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Francesco Vezzoli, self-portrait with Vera Lehndorff as Veruschka, 2001, digital print on aluminum, courtesy of studio Francesco Vezzoli, photo Gian Paolo Barbieri
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Francesco Vezzoli, comizi di non amore — the prequel (contestant no. 1: Catherine Deneuve), 2004, black-and-white laser print on canvas, metallic embroidery, courtesy of Gió Marconi Gallery
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Francesco Vezzoli, true colors (a marble relief head of a goddess, roman imperial, circa 1st century), 2014, ancient sculpture, pigments, casein, wax, varnish
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Francesco Vezzoli, the naked servant (homage to francesco scavullo’s men), 2003, black-and-white laser print on canvas, metallic embroidery, courtesy of Galleria Franco Noero