Kylie Jones
Jun 28, 2023
Venezuelan-American artist Alex Da Corte X Prada
Italian luxury brand Prada releases a blockbuster of Prada's classic Galleria handbags: The Glass Age, conceived by Venezuelan-American artist Alex Da Corte and performed by internationally renowned actor Scarlett Johansson.
An ongoing dialogue between Prada and prominent artists to examine the relationship between Prada classics and iconic cultural figures. For this collaboration, concept artist Da Corte reimagines Johansson's deep and stark image. Da Corte's work spans different media: video, performance, installation, painting, and sculpture, and this is his first foray into fashion. His work freezes pop art and surrealism, fusing high culture and pop culture to create dreamlike, colorful, and all-encompassing artistic visions that explore the humanistic temperament that is inherent in Johansson's work.
In the Chinese market, from May 17th to June 15th, Prada Galleria handbags will have 13 outdoor billboards in seven cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, and Sanya. Prior to this, from May 20th to 25th, the brand launched on WeChat Moments, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Interface, Himalaya, iQiyi, Tencent News, Tencent Video, QQ Music, and other channels.
According to brand data, from May 18 to June 4, Prada Galleria received millions of natural exposures on its official account, and its videos were played nearly one million times. During the same period of time, according to the monitoring data from third-party social media listening, Prada Galleria handbags had more than 83 million exposures on the entire network platform, reached 3.52 million users, and received more than 12,700 interactions.
About the "The Glass Age" advertising blockbuster
In the Galleria handbag campaign, Johansson constantly shifts his image, blending with the sublimation and evolution of everyday reality and deriving pure color. Color has always echoed the state of mind and evoked emotions at any time. At the same time, collective experiences and memories resurface, familiar gestures, attitudes, and situations are reenacted, and Johansson’s globally renowned image is once again reflected, highlighted, and resonated in the campaign.
Nominated for a Tony Award, a BAFTA Award, and an Academy Award, Johansson is known around the world for his superb acting skills and dedicated performances. She is very talented at acting and can freely switch between multiple roles, identities, and ideal incarnations. In essence, she herself is a kind of reflection and refraction - interpreting and revealing another individual, injecting personal inherent characteristics into role-playing.
Johansson transforms his identity and resets the context in the rendering of color. The same goes for the Prada Galleria bag, whose silhouette becomes a canvas for exploring light and print. Here, the Galleria is like a unique mirror, reflecting the ever-changing world around us.
Prada Galleria handbags were born in 2007. They are simple, stylish, and practical. The design of the handbags can be easily transformed between form and function. It has become one of the classic products of the brand in the 21st century.
The Galleria handbags are named after Prada’s historic Galleria Emanuele II flagship store in Milan, where Miuccia Prada’s grandfather Mario Prada started his Prada journey in 1913. The timeless Galleria bag was originally crafted in saffiano leather, for which Mario Prada patented the leather process. Saffiano leather remains a Prada classic material to this day.
This bag celebrates Prada's centuries-old expertise in luxury leather goods. This handbag is composed of 83 parts and is handcrafted. Signature Saffiano leather is laboriously heat-pressed; the bag's raw edges are sanded smooth and hand-banded to harmonize with the leather. Each Galleria bag is embellished with the Prada triangle logo, a symbol of supreme quality.
Since its inception, the Prada Galleria handbag has continued to evolve and sublimate. The connotation of the design remains unchanged, but the essence of the elements is constantly reinterpreted. Prada uses a variety of colors and leathers, is embellished with gorgeous decorations and embroidery, is simply decorated with topstitching, or uses the body of the bag as a canvas to explore various graphics and bold color contrasts. A distinctive and enduring element of the Prada wardrobe, it is redefined and reinvented season after season to suit the mood and spirit of the times. For each new generation, it always has a deep meaning.
Drawing on classic styles from the past, the Galleria handbag revisits the straight-silhouette bags that were popular in the middle of the last century. With a straight silhouette and curved top handle, the bag's interior is composed of three parallel compartments, two of which are zipped, and the other is hidden between the zipped pockets.
About the artist: Alex Da CorteAlex Da Corte is a Venezuelan-American artist currently living and working in Philadelphia.
He has had solo exhibitions at various venues, including the Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2018; Secession, 2016; Art + Practice, Hammer Museum, 2016; MASS MoCA, 2015; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2015); and Institute of Contemporary Art, with Jayson Musson Collaboration, 2014.
Alex Da Corte is currently holding an exhibition called Fresh Hell at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. This exhibition is an exploration of his video works in the style of geometric sculpture design, and it is also an extension and mirror image of the exhibition "Mr. Remember". The exhibition "Mr. Memory" will be held at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark in 2022, featuring sculptures, paintings, and installations (including videos). His latest video work, ROY G BIV, premiered at the 2022 Whitney Biennial.
Further biographies of Alex Da Corte include:
In 2021, she was selected for the Roof Garden Commission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From November 2020 to January 2021, the exhibition "Rubber Pencil Devil," supported by the Prada Foundation and presented by Prada, landed in Shanghai. Rong ZhaiIn 2019, I participated in the Biennale di Venezia and the 57th Carnegie International with the theme "May You Live in Interesting Times."
