The one-minute trailer, composed in the style and structure au fait with perfume commercials or movie teasers, acts as a formal introduction of the artist by the artist. The logo of the artist opens the trailer and the viewer is carried away by what sounds like Claude Debussy's 'Clair De Lune' used in Karl Lagerfeld’s 2006 ad for Chanel no 5, directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Nicole Kidman, which was widely reported as the most expensive perfume advert ever made. Velardi's sountrack is played in reverse, as if the sound was mirrored, to represent a thing of the past - the notes playing back to a time of stability when the luxury market acted as a marker in the economic barometer. The soundtrack in reverse also invites the viewer to question whether the whole trailer is backwards - the words, while they softly dissolve and pan, could read as they are or could be seen to be in reverse when considering the title of the issue - the two additions being the use of 'tomorrow' that is paired with 'today' and the opening text, ‘Summer MMIX’ - both industry tools in creating an atmosphere of suspense and a sense of aspiration for the future, for hope.
The trailer follows a series of two dimensional mock campaigns using glossy graphic work which intend to provide this similar sense of aspiration and expectation, yet ultimately flatten the climax and render these emotions obsolete, questioning our views on social advancement and its validity today. Velardi's borrowing of landmark imagery, typography and sounds of the twenty-first century parallels Richard Hamilton's collages composed from catalogue cuttings from the day. The series plays with ideas of superficiality with narrative layers touching on notions of the art market, the roles of the artist and his relationship with the institution and industry.
Layered behind the mock campaigns is Door Knockers, a new series of illustrations produced in 2009 by Velardi. Inspired by heavy gold jewelry worn by singers and hip-hop icons of the Eighties such as Big Daddy Kane and Slat-N-Pepa, with its colonial routes heavily originating in Africanism, this style was to be copied for future decades and cross the taste-barrier of both social and racial classes by establishing itself as a suggestive symbol of prestige and wealth. Velardi is interested with the cross-over with other 'exotic' cultures, with the series focusing on bamboo shaped jewelery, to create a myriad of ornate Chinois forms and new chain mail effect patterns. He laces these structures with his trademark bourgeois stripes, intertwined with gross grain ribbon, beating down the lines in Heart Knocker; a kaleidoscopic impression of malachite stone in Star Knocker and geometric patterns inspired by American Indian textiles in Knock Knocker - thus cross fertilizing more social and exotic identities from around the world and creating new narratives of familiarity. Bridging the colonial with the contemporary through saturated seduction.
Trailer:
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