A master of cinematic references, Francesco Vezzoli puts on a lavish performance for his final turn as NOWNESS’s artist-in-residence. Appropriating his own work, a tapestry of Greta Garbo hung last year in his MOCA retrospective, and based on Italian Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello’s play As You Desire Me, Vezzoli makes self-representation and entertainment meld in Milan’s heady nightclub, Plastic. “The culture of performance is very important to me,” says the artist, who enlisted the club’s vaunted drag performers for the 21st-century reenactment. 

As he waves goodbye to our long weekend at Plastic to make contemporary ballerinas dance as they did 600 years ago for the 2015 Performa Biennale, Vezzoli reflects on Milan old and new. 

On the evolution of his work… “In the past, when I was working with movie stars, the point was to bring their identity, their stardom, their public significance into my own discourse. Now that I’m no longer working with stars, my work is less conceptual and more academic. For the Biennale, I'm experimenting with researching the early traces, the early basics of body movement. It’s exciting but in a different way, not like seeing Lady Gaga play the piano to a Bolshoi ballet.”   

On his city’s heyday… “The 80s for Milan were phenomenal. It was the birth of so many fashion brands that are now gigantic or have left an imprint on the history of fashion. It started from there. Plastic has been the clubbing place of all those people. 

On Miuccia Prada’s upcoming contemporary art gallery… “It is the most important contemporary art institution that has been given to the public since after the war. We all hope this will change the perception of Milan. It’s a great gesture from one of the greatest Italian creatives in the world, who runs one of the greatest brands in the world. It’s a renaissance gesture.”