Inside Gucci Garden’s Brand New Exhibit In Florence
The unveiling featured pieces created exclusively by artist Livia Carpenzano
On a warm spring evening, during Pitti Uomo’s 96th edition, Gucci unveiled a new exhibit at Gucci Garden housed in the historic Palazzo della Mercanzia in Florence, Italy’s Piazza della Signoria. Conceived by Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele, Gucci Garden features exhibition spaces curated by critic and curator Maria Luisa Frisa.
Presenting pieces created exclusively for the Gucci Garden boutique by artist Livia Carpenzano, the evening began off with drinks under a misted tent to ward off the humid Florentine evening.
Courtesy of Gucci
Inside, guests were able to browse the Gucci Garden boutiques, filled with exclusive designs. A striking new design of the backless Princetown loafer featuring renaissance-style graphics was launched at Gucci Garden. Many of the shoe styles made specifically for Gucci Garden have an embellished interior featuring a Garden Floral design.
Continuing her exploration of the House archive for the exhibit, Maria Luisa Frisa experimented with a new approach to displaying artefacts and documents in the Gucci Garden Galleria. To reflect the brand’s complex, multidimensional and multi-channel history and activity, these new exhibits literally hijack sections of the galleries to illustrate the ever-evolving inclusive imagination of Alessandro Michele, who weaves narratives and mythologies by combining and juxtaposing his personal memories and those of the House.
Courtesy of Gucci
On level one of the Gucci Garden Galleria the Détournement exhibit features decontextualised elements from the House placed in a circle and objects torn from their own history. Japanese artist Yuko Higuchi has created an image that features a large, fantastical, mythical creature and incorporates many of the House motifs, like the interlocking G, as well as flowers and insects that contribute to the sense that this is literally a garden scene within Gucci Garden.
Meanwhile, Bagology takes a deep dive into our favourite accessory, the bag. Mapping a timeline from the 1950s to the present day, the selected pieces from the archive and contemporary collections show how Gucci has been interpreted through the eyes of different its succession of Creative Directors.
Courtesy of Gucci
In keeping with the spirit of creative collaboration that Gucci Garden embraces, its restaurant – the Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura is helmed by internationally renowned chefs Massimo Bottura and Karime López, whose dishes explore the deep roots of the Italian kitchen while making references to history, art and philosophy. “This restaurant is a reminder that Florence has always been a centre of cultural exchange, particularly during the Renaissance,” said Massimo.
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