Gucci’s Surreal Art Walls Blend Flemish Iconography with Fashion

Gucci has unveiled new Art Walls for its Spring/Summer 2018 campaign, created in collaboration with Spanish surrealist artist Ignasi Monreal. The murals are currently on display in New York, Milan, and Hong Kong. The New York Art Wall, located on Lafayette Street in SoHo, depicts two women wearing the latest Gucci eyewear, remixing elements from portraits by Ingres and Goya with decorative motifs from a sarcophagus at the Musei Capitolini in Rome. The Milan Art Wall, in Largo la Foppa, reinterprets Jan van Eyck’s 1434 Arnolfini Portrait and Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1500). Monreal describes his style as “monrealistic,” a surreal blend he calls a “Guccified remix.” The collaboration began in 2015 with Guccigram, a collective digital art project on Instagram, followed by the Gift Giving campaign (which combined mythology and technology) and Gucci Bloom fragrance visuals. For the Art Walls, Monreal drew inspiration from Flemish art, creating dreamlike, surreal worlds. The project continues Gucci’s strategy of merging art and fashion, using large-scale murals as canvases for artistic collaborations.