A small crowd of people is entering a freight elevator, the backstage entrance to an empty, gray, linoleum-coated floored space. The performance begins to unfold through the movements of some dancers interspersed in the crowd, who become identifiable by their subtle motions.

Carlo Antonelli: When did you first picture this exhibition? Francesco Vezzoli: I’ve always pictured it, these are things I’ve always liked. Just today, for that matter, the journalist Roberto D’Agostino mentioned to me casually that the author and TV host Renzo Arbore thinks we should have picked the 1980s. I said I’d chosen the 1970s because the world of television in those days stood in total contrast to the civil war that was underway, whereas the 1980s were this sort of marvelous gaudy confection.