July 5, 2018
Still from a prelude film for Gucci and Frieze's "Second Summer of Love" series. Image courtesy of Gucci
Italian fashion label Gucci is collaborating with Frieze to investigate the rise of electronic music and youth culture through film.
Together, Gucci and Frieze have commissioned filmmakers for a string of shorts centered on the Second Summer of Love in 1988. Following Wu Tsang’s “Into a Space of Love,” which debuted in May at Frieze New York, films by Jeremy Deller and Josh Blaaberg will premiere this summer at Gucci Wooster before screening at Frieze London this fall.
Music scenes
Mr. Deller’s “Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992” looks at the origins of acid house music. While the genre is often linked to a handful of DJs, the film upends this notion by looking at how the broader social changes happening across the U.K. led to the style.
Helping to tell this story, the film features a current class of students who are discovering this history for the first time, showing the past through their perspective.
Still from "Everybody in the Place." Image courtesy of Gucci
Mr. Blaaberg’s “Distant Planet: The Six Chapters of Simona” focuses on Italo disco. The film offers an alternative history through a mix of archival footage, interview and fiction.
In the short’s imagined universe, Americans go crazy for the latest Italo disco hits and New York fountains are filled with Campari.
The two latest films from Gucci and Frieze will be screened at Gucci Wooster this month. Everybody in the Place will run from July 6 to 12, while Distant Planet: The Six Chapters of Simona” will be shown from July 13 to 20.
At Frieze London this October, the two films will be screened together for the first time.
In addition to the films by Mr. Deller and Mr. Blaaberg, Gucci and Frieze commissioned four one-minute prelude films from directors Adam Csoka Keller and Evelyn Benčičová.
Italian fashion label Gucci is heralding its debut in New York’s SoHo neighborhood by paying homage to one of the area's cultural heydays.
In honor of its first store in SoHo, Gucci put a lens on the artsy scene that developed in the neighborhood in the 1980s, as it attracted creatives such as musician Blondie and painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Dubbed Gucci Wooster, the brand’s almost 10,000-square-foot boutique is designed to mirror its home, creating an eclectic space for both creativity and commerce
Taking the boutique experience beyond the transactional, Gucci has built an in-store screening room that will host rotating installations. Consumers can sit in the space’s velvet armchairs to view films in an intimate setting (see story).
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