Celebrity StyleThe Strokes Drummer Fabrizio Moretti Is Back With Another Immersive Art InstallationThe rocker has created a mirrored cube that houses a piece of work by Anish Kapoor

By Erica Campbell

December 2, 2021

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The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti inside his latest art installation.Photo: Jesse Carmody / Courtesy of Sotheby’s

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The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti is a rock star who knows how to engage an audience, and, in his other career as an artist, his philosophy is no different. His second big installation with Sotheby’s debuts at the fine arts broker’s Los Angeles flagship gallery in Beverly Hills on December 3, and it is every bit as interactive and immersive as his first.

“I think the only way for us to move forward is to take care of each other and understand each other better and become cells in a communal body that moves forward in coordination and not in aggression or tension,” the musician tells AD. “A lot of that has to do with giving people the chance to express themselves, but also giving people the chance to feel important.”

Moretti collaborated with Gabi Corey (left) and Franco V on the piece. 

Photo: Jesse Carmody / Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Since his first collaboration with Sotheby’s in 2019, Moretti has put that goal of inciting individuals to better understand their importance in art and in the world at large to task. In his original exhibition and auction, Fabrizio Moretti x Fabrizio Moretti In Passing, he designed and showcased a dynamic and immersive installation, creating a labyrinthine maze for viewers to see 24 works by Old Masters curated by the renowned art dealer who shares his name.

The exterior of Kube.

Photo: Jesse Carmody / Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Now, in his second collaboration, on view until January 29, Moretti picks up where his previous exhibit left off. His Kube sculpture carries a similar goal to his previous work: re-orienting the viewer, transforming them from passive observers into integral parts of the artwork itself. As Moretti says when asked about his intention behind the current exhibit, “as soon as you walk into that cube, you become part of it.”

Designed and fabricated by Moretti, the installation is a nine-foot-tall geometric mirrored room viewers can enter, generating infinite reflections and enveloping the viewer in a series of repeating and illusory patterns. Kube is also made up of one-way mirrors, so outside observers can view those inside of the piece as well. “All of a sudden the relationship between you and the Anish Kapoor [artwork] that’s in there is something that is not only visible, but it’s beautiful,” Moretti says. “It raises its own questions.”

Moretti looking at Anish Kapoor’s Mirror (Pagan Gold to Organic Green) inside Kube.

Photo: Jesse Carmody / Courtesy of Sotheby’s

The Kapoor piece he refers to, Mirror (Pagan Gold to Organic Green), hangs in the interior of Kube. Moretti, who is widely known as the drummer of Grammy-award-winning, platinum-selling New York City post-punk rock band, The Strokes, was drawn to Kapoor’s work after seeing one of his pieces while on tour. “We were playing a show in France and we went to Versailles, and he had a piece right when you go towards the gardens, and it was just so beautiful, the contrast between the almost spacelike object, surrounded by this super-manicured natural beauty.”

Kapoor’s piece plays with the same concept as Moretti’s installation: placing the observer at the center of the work. “He has his piece in front of you that urges you to look back on yourself, and you change as you walk towards it,” Moretti says. “Even sonically, it engulfs you in your sounds, if you should make [one].”

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Moretti’s immersive installation debuts alongside a selling exhibition that will include works from esteemed artists associated with California’s Light and Space movement, like Lita Albuquerque, Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Gisela Colón, Mary Corse, Tony Delap, Laddie John Dill, Robert Irwin, and Dewain Valentine.

Moretti’s desire is for the piece to initiate a perspective shift for the viewer, one that gives people the ability to see their importance as part of a larger whole. “I hope they feel like art, that they feel as important and as valuable as any piece in there,” he says. “There’s a way that mirrors can be portals towards vanity, but there are also ways they can be portals towards self-reflection and understanding. I hope these mirrors do the latter rather than the former.”

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