I'm beta testing a daily email at the moment, and the feature today was fascinating. There is a new fragrance coming out (or is there?) by artist Francesco Vizzoli called Greed. The commercial for it is a short film starring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams wearing tons of Prada and fighting over the perfume; it's directed by Roman Polanski. The commercial's premier will be 2 days from now, at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome. There is a preview of the short film on the site (stills & audio), check it out (no embed: terrible.).
And if this didn't seem interesting enough to me, there's more! Apparently the perfume was inspired by Duchamp*, whom I have admired for almost 10 years. I learned that Duchamp altered /designed /came out with a perfume bottle called Belle Haleine in the 1920s; the image on the bottle is of him in drag.
For those of you lucky enough to be at Gagosian Gallery for this show (you probably don't read this blog if you are), there will be some other artistic treats there as well:
Lending a DIY style to his Gagosian show, Vezzoli stitches Tamara de Lempicka, Eva Hesse, and other top women artists, signifying a tongue-in-cheek endorsement of his scent.One more thing: Francesco Vezzoli recently interviewed Roman Polanski in Interview Magazine about the project, the film business and other stuff.
I have only skimmed it so far (remember: me, busy, yikes), but it seems full of goodies. Wish I could go to this!
* It's not every time I hear about Duchamp twice in one week. I'm currently reading The Savage Detectives, and one of the stories references Nude Descending a Staircase over and over in a kind of comical way. I like it when things from different places collide together in life like that.
