Parallel Universes: the new Gucci x Christie's digital auction

Gucci Art Space and Christie’s 3.0 join forces to present a new digital auction that explores the intersection of fashion, art and technology from the visionary perspective of Gucci’s 102-year history.

Following the success of Future Frequencies: Explorations in Generative Art and Fashion, Christie’s and Gucci are pleased to announce the second chapter of their exploration of the intersectional aspects of fashion, art and technology. Aiming to experiment with and promote avant-garde thinking in order to foster radical new ideas focused on future realities, this new collaborative auction follows in the footsteps of Gucci Cosmos, an innovative exhibition of the House’s most iconic designs from its 102-year history – conceived and designed by Es Devlin with a special selection of unique designs drawn from the Gucci archive by curator Maria Luisa Frisa – which is on view at 180 The Strand cultural centre in London.

Aptly titled Parallel Universes: from Future Frequencies to Gucci Cosmos, the auction will be open for bidding until 28 November 2023 through Gucci Art Space, Gucci’s online exhibition space launched in July 2023 with the mission to promote and empower artists, giving them the freedom and license to explore uncharted territory. Free from physical constraints, this strictly digital environment offers an immersive whirlwind of creativity, this time through the works of nine leading artists whose work revolves around generative systems: Alexis Andre, Alexis Christodoulou, Amy Goodchild, Harvey Rayner, Jacqui Kenny, Jo Ann, Melissa Wiederrecht, Sasha Stiles and Thomas Lin Pedersen.

Through the auction, these artists have been invited to unleash the full potential of generative systems to explore new ways of revolutionising fashion and creating new levels of expression, acting as true portals to the future. Specifically, they have been challenged to address themes from the Gucci archive in a nod to the rooms of the physical exhibition, and to reflect on how the classics and the different aesthetic stages of the House, beyond being a reflection of their time, have been defining each era.

Using generative systems, each of the nine artists has explored one of those themes or myths about the origins of the House that have marked an era – from the London of 1897 when a young Guccio Gucci worked as a bellboy at the Savoy Hotel, to the birth of some of its most emblematic aesthetic symbols, such as the Horsebit, the Flora motif or, more recently, the Rosso Ancora – with the aim of propelling them towards new horizons that might one day become reality and promoting meaningful dialogues between the different eras and their constantly evolving aesthetics, all the while imbuing the future with the past.