Gucci's iconic Flora motif turns 50 next year and to celebrate the print, the Italian fashion house has chosen to hold a blossoming exhibition at its Gucci Museo in Florence. Titled 'The Language of Flowers', this latest offering explores the themes associated with flora in the form of four artist's works including sculpture, photography and conceptual art.
Botanical female faces, Middle Eastern street vendor necklaces and diptychs are not works of art that most would associate with the blooming floral print emblazoned on numerous Gucci collections over the years. But, it is with these deceptive pieces that curator Martin Bethenod aims to introduce the viewer to the various deeper themes flowers hold, such as vanity, politics and grief.
Pieces include Moroccan born artist, Latifa Echakhch's sculpture 'Fantome' (2012). Beyond the visual beauty of the jasmine flower necklaces, the artist uses flora to highlight a political metaphor. Linked to her memory of a travelling jasmine salesman covering his flowers with a shirt to protect their scent and freshness, she evokes the revolutions of the Arab Spring and resistance to chaos through this fragile installation.
Other must-see works include two diptychs by great American photographer Irving Penn. His historical artwork 'Cottage Tulip, Sorbet, New York' (1967) and 'Single Oriental Poppy' (1968) show the great attention paid to perfection through the complex technique, proving that maybe flowers aren't always so simple.
Alluding to one of Gucci's most iconic motifs Flora, curator Martin Bethenod explores the themes associated with flowers in the form of four artists works.
Historical diptychs by famous American photographer, Irving Penn, (pictured here) among others, are not works of art that most would associate with the house's blooming floral print.
But, it is these deceptive pieces that helped curator Martin Bethenod introduce the viewer to the various deeper themes that flowers hold such as, vanity and grief.
Must-see pieces include French photographer Valerie Belin's 2010 floral motif of female faces: 'Phlox New Hybrid (with Dahlia Redskin)' is featured left.
'Calendula (Marigold)' as pictured and 'Phlox New Hybrid (with Dahlia Redskin)' mark the ambiguity between human and plant, natura and artifice and the real and virtual.
On show until the 20 September, the exhibition gives viewers an insight into Gucci's famous Flora print, as seen in this previous exhibition.
ADDRESS
Gucci Museo
Piazza della Signoria,10
50122 Firenze
Italy