Media United Kingdom

The Garden Party

A ghostly installation of life-size hair sculptures by Vauxhall Collective member Maurizio Anzeri

2010-07-07

Back to overview

Print   |  Word   |  Share This   | 

Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri invites the public to join him in the company of hand-stitched sculptures at the most haunting Garden Party of the year

Recipient of the Vauxhall Collective bursary 2010, artist Maurizio Anzeri interpreted the brief “The Great British Weekend” with a seasonal homage to the idea of British diversity and conviviality. Maurizio will create The Garden Party installation, inhabited by ghostly characters stitched and sewn together using an unusual sculpting material: synthetic hair.

Taking inspiration from multiple sources, from Virginia Wolfe’s Mrs Dalloway to totemic cultures, 17th century Versailles and haute couture fashion, the installation involves the creation of a series of sculptures, each representing a different personality. Each “presence”, as Maurizio describes them, metaphorically talks about bodily boundaries and the embodiment of the space, in an ongoing artistic research process around the human body and its representation. Anzeri’s obsession with hair, which he defines as “the most sculptural part of the human body”, has brought him to the invention of a technique through which hair becomes a sculptural material. Stitching and sewing together synthetic hair with painstaking precision, Maurizio creates sculptures that grow organically and acquire autonomous life and “persona” during the meticulous process.

The show is located in one of the most exciting new spaces for contemporary art, Q Space in central London, run by Francesca Migliorati, Bigna Pfenninger and Silke Rittson-Thomas. Until recently the premises of antique-bookseller Bernard Quaritch, the space will be gracefully transformed by the artist into a stage for his characters, its original walls forming a constituent part the installation with floral excrescences hanging from the ceiling.

Maurizio’s installation will dress the timeless bookshelves of the antique library, breathing new life into the cavernous silence and creating an unmissable experience for the viewer, who is invited to discover the different protagonists of The Garden Party.

The Vauxhall Style Council, Fine Art Category:

Blaise Patrick, Fine Art Society
David Gilbert, Director, CultureLabel
Alice Sharp, independent curator
Karen Ashton, independent curator
Hannah Barry, Director, Hannah Barry gallery

Q
5-8 Lower John Street
London W1F 9HA
TEL :+44 (0)2072873554

Maurizio Anzeri

Maurizio Anzeri graduated from the Slade School of Fine Arts in 2005, with an MA in Fine Art (Sculpture). He was selected as one of the top 100 young emerging artists in Flash Art (2008), and was one of the 30 artists shortlisted for the 2008 Sovereign European Art Prize.  He has collaborated with the late Isabella Blow, and Alexander McQueen,, for whom he created a gothic sculptural piece inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and entitled “Lady Ugolino”.

Anzeri’s fascination with sculptural bodily forms comes from an interest in the relationship between body and identity, gender and boundaries. Stitching and sewing materials together Anzeri creates morphologic sculptural pieces, made of synthetic hair. His previous work includes working on found old photographs, which are brought back to life through delicate embroideries stitched on the surfaces.

In 2010 he was nominated by the DailyTelegraph for “Picture of the year 2009”; Maurizio has also been shortlisted in the “Hospital 100” list of UK’s creative industries.

Anzeri’s latest solo show, Darwin’s tears opened at Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy, and his work was also featured in Photography Now and Fantom. Maurizio’s work has been chosen as the leading image for the event “Alta Roma Moda” at Macro Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome.

Editor’s Notes

Vauxhall Motors

With an ongoing commitment to championing style and design in the UK, British car marquee Vauxhall is a keen supporter of creativity through initiatives such as the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair 2010, the Vauxhall Fashion Scout and the Vauxhall Collective.

Latest models include New Astra, a car that shares the same design language as Insignia and that has been built in Ellesmere Port, Liverpool and New Meriva, with its unique in-class FlexDoors.

Vauxhall is reinventing the car as we know it with Ampera, Vauxhall's first electric car. The wheels are turned electronically at all times and speeds and can be plugged into any household 240v outlet for charging.

Vauxhall Collective

The Vauxhall Collective is one of the most ambitious commercially-funded creative support schemes in the UK.

Members of the Vauxhall Collective are supported financially to carry out projects, consequently raising their profile in the industry and in the media, and giving them the resources to fulfil their creative potential.

In previous years Vauxhall successfully ran the VX Collective based on collaboration between members. Previous members have included Giles Deacon and Christopher Kane.

Vauxhall Collective 2008:
Jonathan Kelsey, Simon Hasan, Ben Rivers, Gayle Chong Kwan, Matthew Darbyshire and Gideon Reeling

Vauxhall Collective 2009:
Katie Paterson, Duncan Speakman, Seba Kurtis and Studio Glithero