Metafisica Da Giardino

This catalogue explores De Chirico’s works and Vezzoli’s complex and fascinating practice around them. Designed to reflect the experimental and experiential nature of Vezzoli’s installation at Nahmad Projects, Metafisica Da Giardino draws on diverse design techniques and materials to create a book in the same playful, self reflexive and irreverent spirit as the artists it has in dialogue.

Metafisica da Giardino was curated by renowned Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli. The gallery was radically transformed: the floor was artificially grassed and the walls painted entirely in murals stylising de Chirico’s iconic motif of the Piazza d’Italia. Vezzoli brought together works by himself and a selection of paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s. The goal was to create a historical dialogue, where the Italian twentieth century re-emerges as part of the present – as seen through Vezzoli’s eyes. Highlights by Vezzoli in the show included Minima idea (Muso Dell’Antichità), an assemblage sculpture of a classical Roman bust and a new bronze head inspired by de Chirico’s metaphysical figures. The exhibition also featured early works by de Chirico such as Les philosophes Grecs (1925) and Gladiatori (1928), and later works, including Bagni Misteriosi (1974) and Il Sole sul Cavalletto (1968). Curatorial interventions are not new to Vezzoli’s practice, with projects in museums and galleries worldwide. In 2016, Vezzoli joined Museion in Bolzano, Italy, as a guest curator and displayed works from the collection alongside a retrospective of his own. His recent collaboration with the Italian national television broadcaster Rai at the Fondazione Prada in Milan used found footage shot by the channel in the 1970s to open a window onto the cultural influences of his youth. Metafisica da Giardino will be another act of “styling the past” by engaging with the twentieth century master Giorgio de Chirico. The show was also responsive to its site, in that de Chirico is an integral artist within the Nahmad Collection, creating a synergy between the artist and the history of the gallery itself. Vezzoli has had an enduring interest in the artwork of Giorgio de Chirico since the early stages of his career. He has already manipulated de Chirico’s Piazza d’Italia in architectural space with the addition of a bronze sculpture of Sophia Loren to Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans. The site was the architect Moore’s own homage to de Chirico’s surreal spaces, with Vezzoli adding the third layer. Known for his embroidered panels, where he stitches over appropriated and reconfigured images, Vezzoli is redrawing the intersection of art history and pop culture for the twenty-first century. Such works include images from Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings alongside apparitions of celebrities past and present including Sergei Diaghilev and Lady Gaga.