The Gucci Museo in Florence is hosting an exhibition titled "The Language of Flowers" curated by Martin Béthenod. The exhibition features works from four artists - Valérie Belin, Marlene Dumas, Latifa Echakhch, and Irving Penn - exploring themes related to flowers through various mediums such as photography, paintings, collages and installations. Two historical diptychs by Irving Penn are included that highlight his mastery of platinum printing techniques. The Gucci Museo is housed in the ancient Palazzo della Mercanzia building and contains the fashion house's archives as well as hosting rotating contemporary art exhibitions sourced from the Pinault Collection.

1. Magazine for Art, Travel & Creativity
Issue 05 /May 2015
ISSN 2364-7442
Price: 15 Euro /12 GBP
Gucci Museo • The Leading Culture Destinations Awards
Baby You Can Drive My Car • Hotels for Art & Design Lovers
Erwin Wurm Artist Portrait • The Re-Rebirth of Classic Rock

2. 1110
ARTTRAVEL
Last month, on the cusp of the ides of March, Florence’s Palazzo della
Mercanzia, on the Piazza della Signoria, was in full bloom with the
latest exhibition of the Pinault Collection at the Gucci Museo, the
fashion house’s famed museum, archive and exhibition space. Titled
‘The Language of Flowers‘, on until 20 September, the show celebrates
one of the Gucci’s most iconic motifs – flora – and features four
remarkable artists with works dating from 1967 to 2012.
Curated by Martin Béthenod, director of Venice’s Palazzo Grassi, the exhi-
bition examines the flower as a powerful symbol, embracing themes such as
memory, political chaos and technical mastery. Various mediums are repre-
sented too, such as photography via the French artist Valérie Belin. Her
strikingly beautiful Calendula (Marigold), 2010 and Phlox New Hybrid (with
Dahlia Redskin), 2010, merge an explosion of flowers with the human face,
offering a surrealist look into the duality of nature and artifice, plants and
human beings. All four artists in the show have exhibited internationally and
the Paris-based Belin, born in 1964, has been featured in the Musée d’Art
Moderne de la Ville de Paris as well as New York’s MoMa and LACMA in
Los Angeles.
Also widely exhibited in Paris and the US is Marlene Dumas, whose
melancholic Einder (Horizon), 2007-2008, in the show is a tribute to her late
mother: the haunting, blue-toned flower arrangement had been set atop her
coffin. Marked with mourning and memory, it’s a standout piece by one of
contemporary art’s most fêted names. The South African native, who now
lives and works in Amsterdam, has represented the Netherlands in the Venice
Biennale, and though has produced paintings, collages, drawings and
installations, is most known for her evocative and unconventional portraits.
GUCCI MUSEO
The Language of Flowers
Text: Ming Liu / Images: Courtesy of Gucci Museo
Calendula (Marigold) by Valerie Belin

3. 1312
ARTART
Taking things up a notch is Morocco-born Latifa
Echakhch, whose installation Fantôme (Jasmin), 2012,
references the jasmine necklaces peddled by vendors
in Middle Eastern cities. Like Dumas, the piece is
linked to an early memory of the artist, here with the
flowers’ muted colours and inherent fragility evoking
the revolutions of the Arab Spring.
The last – and perhaps most illustrious – artist
featured in The Language of Flowers is fashion legend
Irving Penn. Béthenod – whose Palazzo Grassi recent-
ly exhibited 130 photographs of Penn’s 1940 t0 1980
– has juxtaposed two historical diptychs, Cottage
Tulip, Sorbet, New York, 1967 and Single Oriental
Poppy, 1968. The works highlight the genius of their
printing, which features platinum instead of the more
conventional silver for the black and white, and dye
transfer for the colour. Such labour-intensive printing
defined Penn’s work in the 1960s; a true, lead experi-
menter, Penn taught himself the specific printing
process from an outmoded practice. The result, says
Andy Grundberg of The New York Times, “produces
beautiful, velvety tones in the image and is among the most permanent of
photographic processes…[Penn] almost single-handedly brought the process
back into popularity, perfected a method that greatly increased depth and
luminosity.”
Born in New Jersey in 1917, Penn studied drawing, painting, graphic and
industrial design at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now
the University of the Arts). At 26, after a year’s stint painting in Mexico, he
was working under the influential Vogue art director Alexander Liberman,
and on October 1, 1943, Penn’s first Vogue cover hit newsstands – a colour
still-life of a glove, belt and purse. Penn would go on to create more than 150
covers for the magazine, and earn the accolade as Condé Nast’s longest
tenured photographer.
Signature to his style was a Shaker-like minimalism combined with simple,
stark lighting, and though remembered as a fashion photographer, his photo-
graphs were, as Grundberg described, “imbued with calm and decorum …
[and] often seemed intent on defying fashion.” Cue in particular the now-
classic beauty advertisements he shot for Clinique, with their sparse beauty
and clinical precision. Penn was above all a perfectionist and purist, and the
two pieces in the Gucci exhibition showcase his formal sense of control and
unyielding perfectionism.
Einder(Horizon)byMarleneDumas
SingleOrientalPoppybyIrvingPenn
“Penn almost single-
handedly perfected a
method that greatly
increased depth and
luminosity.”
The opulent Gucci Museo opened in September 2011 during
Milan Fashion Week, and marked the 90th anniversary of
the fashion house. The ancient structure is a true symbol of
Florentine arts craftsmanship, having originally been founded
in 1308 as the office responsible for supporting local guilds,
including Florentine cloths importers and silk weavers. Such
history has been weaved into the Gucci Museo, which today –
over three floors and 1,715 sq m – encompasses a restaurant and
café (the guild crests hang here, alongside one for Gucci’s,
created in the 1950s), a Rizzoli bookstore, gift shop and Icon store
stocked with exclusive Gucci wares, alongside a fashion archive
and exhibition space.
The Museo is divided into thematic rooms, including per-
manent exhibitions such as the not-to-be-missed travel display
– and a standout centrepiece: a cool, 1979 Cadillac Seville in
white, decked out in Gucci logos and motifs. Arranged on the
ground floor beside mainly 1950s to 1970s trunks, suitcases and
other travel accessories, it pays homage to founder Guccio Gucci,
who in his early years worked as a lift boy in London’s Savoy
Hotel, during the turn-of-the-century’s golden age of travel. On
his return to Florence, he opened a workshop specializing in
travel pieces that were stamped with “G. Gucci, Articles for
Travel, Florence”.

4. 15
ART
Also highlighting Gucci’s history and time-honored themes are the permanent exhibi-
tions Handbags and Evening as well as Flora, Bamboo and Logomania. Meanwhile, the
basement is home to the precious vault: a collection of ready-to-wear pieces and
accessories that have been lovingly catalogued and conserved alongside historical
documents and photographs.
But the modern nexus is the Contemporary Art Space, located on the first floor, and
where The Language of Flowers can currently be seen. All exhibitions at the Museo
showcase works from the Pinault Collection and past artists have included Camille
Henrot, Cindy Sherman and Joana Vasconcelos. With the Palazzo’s ancient Medici roots
mixed in with 90-plus years of rich Gucci history, this is a dynamic, evocative space to
display contemporary art.
As Béthenod said: “When we started to work together with the team at Gucci Museo …
It was important to find an idea – to find a fil rouge – that would allow us to show very
historical artists and younger artists, to have group shows as well as solo shows.”
The Language of Flowers is the Museo’s seventh iteration, and with two to three shows
planned per year, we can’t wait to see what this fabulous museum will put on next.
Exhibition “The Language of Flowers”
at Gucci Museo: Palazzo della Mercanzia
in Florence - until 20th September 2015
www.guccimuseo.com
Fantôme by Latifah Echakhch