Oviparity

The mesmerizing portfolio of images in the new limited-edition artbook by Yorgos Lanthimos, shot among the statues inside the Leda Gallery of Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome.

The photographer’s images depict elderly men and women whose powdered skin mimics the pallor of marble. They pose like statues or artists’ models and interact with young people wearing colourful and patterned Cruise 2020 looks by Alessandro Michele inside the Leda Gallery. Built within the Villa Albani Torlonia grounds, the Leda Gallery is home to an exceptional collection of Greek and Roman sculptures. It is named after the statue that sits at its centre, ‘Leda and the Swan’ a first-century Roman copy of an earlier Greek statue from the fourth century BC attributed to Timotheus—enhancing the value of the copy, which possesses its own authenticity. The artbook’s title, Ωοτοκία (Oviparity) also nods to the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, as it is a zoological term meaning the production of eggs by an animal; in some versions of the story, Leda, having been seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan, lays two eggs from which two of her children are hatched.
‘Oviparity’ is be distributed by IDEA Books, the London-based independent publisher and is also be available at Gucci Garden in Florence and Gucci Wooster in New York.