LOUIS VUITTON partners up with longstanding collaborator Frank Gehry for this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach fair.
The Canadian-American architect’s display will showcase various works representing his distinguishable artistic capacities and his continuous experimentation with forms.
Materials of wood and cardboard are often used throughout the architect’s creations and will realise their form alongside a display of sail-like mesh constructs, which pay homage to Gehry’s 2014 window display for the Maison.
Louis Vuitton collaborate with Frank Gehry at Art Basel Miami Beach
The display presents bags, trunks, perfume bottles, artworks, sketches and architectural models, which touch on four independent themes personal to Gehry — Architecture and Form, Material Exploration, Animals, and his Twisted Box creation for Celebrating Monogram.
The booth will additionally demonstrate Louis Vuitton x Frank Gehry, an exclusive bag capsule inspired by themes of architecture and form, material exploration, and animals, realised through the esteemed Louis Vuitton Capucines bags, the Twisted Box Trunk and a Bear With Us Clutch, inspired by the architects Bear With Us sculpture.
Louis Vuitton collaborate with Frank Gehry at Art Basel Miami Beach
The bags displayed merge together Gehry’s design expertise with the Maison’s inherent savoir-faire. The Capucines Mini Blossom is the ideal representation of this with its glass-like resin petals in pink and blue and its hammered LV embellishment, which reflects the logo he designed for the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a building he also designed for the Maison.
The Capucines MM Floating Fish is intricately crafted from leather and derives its inspiration from the piscine lamps showcased at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the Capucines MM Concrete Pockets, produced from a 3D cement-like screen-printing, displays a textured appearance on the calfskin surface, mimicking the textures of Gehry’s establishments.
A Tea Party For Louis Trunk is also on display, designed by the architect for the Maison’s 200th birthday. Inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a novel by Lewis Carroll, the trunk demonstrates figurines, each presenting a character from the novel merged with an imaginary construct of one of Gehry’s buildings.
Louis Vuitton collaborate with Frank Gehry at Art Basel Miami Beach
Finalising the exhibition are various other projects created for Louis Vuitton by the architect, such as the Les Extraits perfume bottles and the Flaconnier Les Extraits used for their transport.
Also, presented are drawings from Gehry’s Celebrating Monogram project and maquettes showcasing his design process for the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
Videos played in the space depict Gehry’s past collaborations with the fashion house, and alongside stands a painting of Gehry done by Jean-Philippe Delhomme.
Louis Vuitton’s first booth at Art Basel was in Paris and is now in Miami Beach. The fashion house has become a global Associate Partner of the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, further emphasising the Maison’s long-established dedication to the arts.
by Nicole Pereira