Looking for Juliet (The 2020 Pirelli Calendar)
Artist
Paolo Roversi
(Italian, born 1947)
Publisher
Pirelli and Company
Date2000
MediumBound volume
Dimensions15 3/4 × 11 3/4 × 3/4 in. (40 × 29.8 × 1.9 cm)
ClassificationsPhotography
Credit LineGift of Pirelli & C. SpA
Object number2020.15
DescriptionThis is a calendar in the form of a bound volume in a slip cover that reads: Pirelli Calendar by Paolo Roversi. The interior front and back cover displays photographic images and embossed and gold-foil lettering that include a calendar that highlights dates from the lives of Romeo and Juliet, including Juliet’s birth, her first meeting with Romeo, their wedding, and their death. The book has 132 pages, includes foldouts, and intersperses selections of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with 58 photos in color and black-and-white. The portraits of woman are styled as if they were auditioning for the role of Juliet. Roversi asked each model to reenact their version of the ideal character from Shakespeare’s drama, and the process was also recorded for an 18-minute film. The Calendar photographic shoot unfolds in two phases. In the first, the women arrive at the set, without makeup or costumes. Among them are Claire Foy, Mia Goth, Chris Lee, Indya Moore, Rosalía, Stella Roversi, Yara Shahidi, Kristen Stewart, and Emma Watson. In a series of photographs they each take on their own version of Juliet, offering a broad range of personas, emotions, and expressions to convey the idea of the fabled character and it overlaps with their own personalities. In this way, the calendar suggests how fiction and reality overlap and blur.
