Greed. The perfume that doesn't exist.

I saw this today and thought it was so great. Do you remember the trailer to the fake Caligula remake? That was Francesco Vezzoli. He's 38 years old, Italian--obviously, and his project, GREED, A New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli was shown at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome earlier this year. I can't believe I didn't hear about this sooner.


Marcel Duchamp's Belle Haleine eau de voilette
In an artinfo.com interview he was asked: How concerned were you with the example of Duchamp as you conceived of Greed?

It was very important. His perfume bottle is such a genius piece. And then it ends up in the hands of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge — you can’t imagine a more appropriate metaphor for the past century, you know, Eau de Voilette by Duchamp ends up in the hands of the two most sophisticated, gay, creative brains in France since the War; it’s such a great story. The Duchamp perfume for me is unlike some of his objects — I know that this is dangerous to say, and people will think Vezzoli is taking some weird drugs — but compared to the urinal or other famous pieces, this has a kind of dandyish touch, a play with the vocabulary of fashion with Man Ray shooting him dressed like Rrose Selavy. I love that. There’s no real intellectual agenda. Just to say how much I loved that part of his work.

Francesco Vezzoli's Greed, 2009
Crystal, paper and ribbon, 15 11/16 x 10 5/8 x 5 1/8 inches (40 x 27 x 13 cm)
Francesco, how did the idea for Greed come about?

I’ve done a trailer for a movie that didn’t exist, an election campaign for candidates who were completely fictitious, and a premiere for a play that was never going to run. A project about the launch of a perfume that didn’t exist seemed like a natural next step.

I presume you started this project before the current economic crisis.

Yes, otherwise nobody would have green-lighted it.

One of many posters Vezzoli designed for Greed.
The Greed Commercial

Click here for a much better quality version of the video.

Of course I was super excited also to find out that Vezzoli is friends with Lady Gaga:

The New Yorker had an article about Lady Gaga and Vezzoli and Frank Gehry which I found quite entertaining:

a large silver leather headdress brooded like an alien hen: Gehry had designed it, at Vezzoli’s behest, and Prada had fabricated it, for the avant-garde, hat-friendly pop star Lady Gaga to wear during a performance with dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet ... Gehry said that he had done the initial drawing on his iPhone, which an assistant then produced: a violet scribble with a black-and-blue iris at the center. “Since I’ve never designed a hat before, I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to walk,” he said. “I did have an idea that involved people with sticks holding it up, walking behind her. I didn’t know how far I could go with this thing."

Yeah, and Damien Hirst customized that pink butterfly piano she's playing in the performance. (?!?!)

Oh, and if you haven't seen it yet, here is the Caligula remake trailer with tons of moviestar cameos and Gore Vidal himself! And btw, it's definitely NSFW.