An associate partner of Art Basel Paris for the third consecutive year, Louis Vuitton is delighted to celebrate its long-standing collaboration with Frank Gehry in an exhibition revealed
on the Balcon d’Honneur of the Grand Palais.
Beyond his identity as an architect, artist and designer, Frank Gehry is guided in each of his creations by a constant experimentation with shapes and materials. The artist himself helped conceive its scenography, revisiting the key elements of his collaboration with Louis Vuitton through an assembly of objects, drawings, and models that he has created for the Maison over an almost 20 year period of collaboration.
Floating at the top of the grand staircase of the Grand Palais is a monumental hanging white fish, like a colossal reference to this central figure of Frank Gehry’s architectural vision. The sculpture highlights its delicate figure which, combining strength and suppleness, symbolises the aerodynamics that characterise Gehry’s structures. It also emphasises the ornamental effect of its scales, which have inspired the principle of variation that is also fundamental in his work on shapes. The mobile animal is encircled by a large arch of wooden slats arranged into geometric patterns. This spectacular piece – like some of the pieces in the washi paper displayed here – is a reminder of Frank Gehry’s affection for the Japanese visual arts.
Borne by shared values of excellence and innovation, the artistic synergy with Frank Gehry has notably brought an emblematic monument to Paris: the Fondation Louis Vuitton building, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. A masterpiece of 21st-century architecture, this iconic edifice began to take shape in the architect’s mind in the early 2000’s. An initial exploration reveals Frank Gehry’s approach to transparency
and light as materials to sculpt. An array of illustrations, some dating back to 2006, and scale models highlights his characteristic use of openings and glass, like the spatial transpositions of a crystalline dream. The models of sails are also tangible reminders
of the importance of navigation in designing this glass vessel. The same codes appear in one of his latest creations, Maison Louis Vuitton Seoul, inaugurated in 2019.
For this showcase, which is also inspired by light and fluidity, the architect again reveals his complex art of structure by playing on the oblique arrangement of shapes,
multiple intricacies of lines of force, and harmonious ruptures of perspective.
Transparency, twisting, lightness: these concepts also inspired a collection of perfume stoppers that Frank Gehry designed for Louis Vuitton in 2021. He created the Blossom design, evoking both flowers and flames, to top the Les Extraits perfume bottles.
In 2022, the Les Editions d’Art reedited the stoppers entirely in Murano glass.
Frank Gehry’s sketches reveal the creative process behind these dynamic, iridescent pieces inspired by organic aesthetics.
The exhibition will take place as part of the 2024 edition of Art Basel Paris, to be held at the Grand Palais from 18 to 20 October.
