To mark the return of Frieze and reopening of the art world this autumn, the old master dealer and owner of Trinity Fine Art, Carlo Orsi, is looking at historic art afresh by inviting the artist Francesco Vezzoli to re-imagine Baroque sculpture. It is Orsi’s first foray into contemporary art, in association with Vezzoli’s Italian gallerist Franco Noero. This collaboration has arisen out of the artist’s passion for the drama and emotion of Baroque art: he has created an installation based on the father-son relationship of Marquess Giovanni Corsi and his youngest son, Cardinal Domenico Maria Corsi, both carved by the 17th-century Roman artist Alessandro Rondoni (c.1644 – c.1710),  a contemporary of Bernini. Vezzoli plays a dual role here – both artist and curator – inserting his own work in dialogue with the two Baroque busts and reflecting on them in a dramatic mise-en-scene.

Orsi comments: ‘Rondoni’s work and career has fallen into relative obscurity compared with that of his contemporaries, although he was a popular artist in his time, and these two life-size portrait busts of father and son are special both for their exquisite quality and also for their provenance: they come directly from the Corsi family, in whose collection they remained for over 300 years. They were both commissioned in 1686 by the son, Domenico Maria Corsi, to celebrate his nomination as a cardinal and point back to his father Giovanni. They show off his lineage and yet also show that he had become a prince of the church and had surpassed his father and elevated the status of his family. It’s a complex intellectual story and a familiar one. I told Francesco about these pieces and he was fascinated. So I invited him to work with them – for me, it’s an exciting visual experiment.’Vezzoli has long been drawn to the Baroque and comments: ‘I want to feel emotion and so I seek out the Baroque, where by Baroque I mean the historical style but also an emotional characteristic that is present in every age.’ The artist is particularly attracted to what he calls ‘the aura’ of Rondoni’s works: ‘I believe Rondoni is underestimated and deserves a little glamour… You just have to look at these busts to realise that Rondoni was extraordinarily skilled at breathing life into a piece of marble.’

Vezzoli’s installation creates a dialogue between father and son and reimagines their filial relationship by positioning the busts on new pedestals that he has designed and wrapped in scarlet moire silk from the Roman ecclesiastical tailors Gammarelli, purveyors to the Vatican since 1798. For Vezzoli, this symbolic colour of cardinals also enlivens the pure white marble sculptures with a camp, provocative spirit and sensuality. Between the busts of the two men, Vezzoli has placed an ancient Roman Janus head – an antiquity on which the artist has intervened to make one face new, while leaving the other in its time- worn original state. Janus – a god whose two faces look backwards and forwards – was invented by the Romans to preside over moments of transition: bridges, gates, the new year. Here, high atop his mirrored plinth, Janus’s double gaze reflects on old and new, father and son, our world and theirs.In this single-room installation on a specially made triangular set, Vezzoli creates a multi- layered mise-en-scene that plunges the viewer into a drama with no beginning or end. Instead, the work focuses on the act of looking itself, backward and forward, from a son to his dead father, back to antiquity and forward into our own space and time. The mute stones stand still but our eyes keep moving, searching out their stories and finding new connections with each look. For both Orsi and Vezzoli, this work invites viewers to come back into the gallery space and move around the installation to view it from all angles, reminding us of the visual, intellectual and physical pleasure of looking at art.

An artist known for combining the sensibilities of both a film director and a sculptor, Vezzoli’s work crosses film, fashion, pop culture and art and he frequently works with strong female figures, such as Catherine Deneuve, Eva Mendes, Cate Blanchett, and Lady Gaga. 

His installation at Trinity Fine Art marks the first time he has focused on examining the specifically male themes of the father-son relationship: ‘Exploring family ties, like exploring anything that is narrative and emotional … comes naturally to me. I think it’s an interesting challenge,’ says Vezzoli. ‘In addressing this theme … I tried to highlight the father-son dynamic in the title. For me, the relationship between classicism and the art of the past is clearly a search for the absolute and bonds with parents are always there.’