Francesco Vezzoli’s Caligula was unquestiobaly the succes du scandale of the 2005 Venice Biennale. Hailed by some experts as genius, dismissed by others as a crock, it was nonetheless rapturously embraced by the general public, who apparently recognized in its flashiness, tongue-in-cheek acting, and blatant exploitation of a historical subject something that the art world might have conveniently overlooked: a fitting tribute to our own vulgar, sex-and-celebrity-obsessed society, done not as a ‘critique’ of satire but as a spoof that always stays a step ahead of its target.

What made Caligula all the more remarkable as a contemporary artwork is the often overlooked fact that it was not presented as a film at all, but only as the trailer for a film that will clearly never be made. In fact, with bankable stars like Helen Mirren, Benicio del Toro and Courtney Love hamming it up alongside the likes of Karen Black, and the voice-over somberly spouting movie business doggerel, part of Vezzoli’s point is that his ‘Caligula’ is probably something that you never actually pay to see, other than as a three-minute preview that precedes the featured attraction.

Hoaxes are an increasingly significant part of Vezzoli’s body of work, as witnessed by the post-opening dinner for his recent opening in Los Angeles – the first at an American gallery --, at which a roomful of stars and various hangers-on gathered at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to pay tribute to the original author of Caligula, Gore Vidal, on his 80th birthday, only to learn by the third or fourth toast that it was not his birthday at all, and that Vezzoli had made the whole thing up.

This incessant mocking tone, which is to a very real degree a feature of Vezzoli’s impateince ove the art world’s increasing pompousness, is even more evident in his Taipei contribution, Marlene Redux: A Hollywood True Story. Shot in a familiarly tabloid style to simulate an actual television show that specializes in sordid exposes of Hollywood’s underside, ‘Marlene Redux’ narrates the chilling ‘facts’ of a real-life artist, Francesco Vezzoli, whose overnight success led him to increasingly erratic behavior, a catastrophic new film, and culminated in drugs, male prostitues, and the inevitable drowning in a backyard pool. Although less immediately convincing than some of Vezzoli’s other hoaxes, Marlene Redux nonetheless lays bare the distressing gap between what we really expect from art (surprisingly little) and what we expect from the people who make art (everything).