FRANCESCO VEZZOLI’S FAVOURITE PARTIES Where do you like to go clubbing? This will show my age… Les Bain Douches was amazing. When I was 18 I managed to sneak into Annabel’s, but just once. And once was enough. I loved Quiet Storm, off Jermyn Street. And I loved the Milk Bar with Jenny Rampling on the door. I never managed to get into Nell’s. I loved early Ministry of Sound. And I loved Vertigo in LA in the late 80s. And of course Queer Nation every Sunday in Covent Garden. Now I am addicted to Plastic in Milano. When did you start clubbing in London? When I arrived in London in the early 90s, I befriended Fat Tony. He was the best DJ. I learned all I knew about London nightlife from him and from i-D. What’s the best party you’ve ever been to? The one I was not invited to. What’s your favourite song to dance to? Whitney Houston everytime.
“The exhibition is geographical and emotional. It’s basically all the way from Brescia, where I was born, to Hollywood and back!” FRANCESCO VEZZOLI Silvana Mangano was an Embroiderer, 2000, courtesy of the artist.
Tua (Portrait of Dolly Parton After Palma il Vecchio and Ambrosius Bosschaert), 2010, courtesy Galleria Franco Noero, Turin.
Now it seems that the new powers are the social media and again, just like I tried to engage myself with the media, analyse and deconstruct them, at this point I’d like to study these new social structures and see what kind of impact they have on our lives, on our tastes and on our sexual behaviours. N: What are your hopes for the exhibition? Do you think it might enable people to understand your whole raison d’être as an artist? F: Yes, that’s probably the only natural and simple thing to hope for. I want people to understand what I’ve done in the past, so I can move on without anybody asking me, ‘why didn’t you do that?’ and me having to answer, ‘oh, I’ve already done it.’ In the future, I really want to change, but not just for the 226 i-D THE TIME IS NOW ISSUE
sake of it, it’s an essential part of my nature. Hopefully it will be refreshing and liberating. People will think, ‘oh good! He dealt with Lady Gaga, so he faced pop culture… he worked with Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett, so he talked about Hollywood… he involved Gore Vidal, so he threw in the discussion those great American thinkers that created a bridge between American and European culture… he dealt with all that.’ N: So what happens next? F: Now I would love to meet Mark Zuckerberg! I’m really trying to create a dynamic with social media… For example, I want to make a viral commercial for the exhibition, which is pretty much in line with what I’ve always done, i-D THE TIME IS NOW ISSUE 227