VREELAND MEMOS
by Alessandro Magania featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo

Part of Visionaire 25th Anniversary Artists' videos.
For their 25th anniversary, art and fashion publication Visionaire asked different artists to each make a video inspired by one of their issues. I was assigned issue #37 in which they published a collection of memos sent out by Diana Vreeland during her tenure at Vogue in the 60s and early 70s. The language of the memos is so outlandish - and the punctuation so unique - I decided to use it in a way that would disassociate it from its original context - and any reference to Vreeland herself, or fashion - so as to highlight its poetry alone. I asked countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo to collaborate with me and (with a little help from Handel and Scarlatti) arrange some of the memos as snippets of baroque opera, which we then staged and shot as if capturing a rehearsal for an imaginary opera.
Concept and direction Alessandro Magania
Director of photography Plamen Petkov
With Anthony Roth Costanzo, Koosil Ja, Veleriya Poulunina
Singer and arranger Anthony Roth Costanzo
Harpsichord and Piano Valeriya Polunina
Sound recording David Pym
Special thanks Hank Heijink, James Ivory, Travis Just, Irina Kruzhilina, Kim Macron, Daniel Allen Nelson, Simo Peretti, Max Tannone, Robert Warner.
duration 4:13 mins
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