Milan, February 2023
Louis Vuitton announced the launch of the “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sneaker Collaboration Collection” exhibition, which aims to present the first artist collaboration series of LV Trainer sneakers. Released on February 24, 2023, three limited-edition LV Trainer sneakers featuring new images were designed by Louis Vuitton in collaboration with artists Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones and Rammellzee (deceased). This exhibition kicks off a long-term art exchange project themed on the LV Trainer sneakers, which will be available at the pop-up Louis Vuitton store in Garage Traversi, Milan, from February 24 to March 16, 2023 display. During the exhibition, the space will also exclusively sell the cooperative sneakers in limited quantities.
“White canvas:LV TrainerSports shoes cooperation series”
On February 24, 2023, Louis Vuitton released the limited edition “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sports Shoes Cooperation Series”. This new series is a new interpretation of the classic LV Trainer sneakers by well-known artists. Initiated by Virgil Abloh, former Louis Vuitton menswear artistic director, and in collaboration with Sky Gellatly, the project uses the iconic pure white leather low-top LV Trainer sneaker as a blank canvas for artistic exchange between Louis Vuitton and contemporary artists. An invitation to free expression, the collaboration builds on Louis Vuitton’s long-standing relationship with the arts, a continuous creative dialogue with various fields of knowledge and genres.
As the first appearance of “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sneaker Collaboration Series”, Louis Vuitton invited three representative artists of New York underground culture in the 1980s to reinterpret the LV Trainer sneaker. Today, the trio of artists Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones and (the late) Rammellzee (the late) are renowned in contemporary art for their work, which reinterprets the LV Trainer sneaker with a unique artistic vision. Lady Pink, born in Ecuador in 1964, actively promotes the development of the graffiti-based art genre and is still highly sought after by hip-hop lovers. Lee Quiñones, born in Puerto Rico in 1960, became famous for his full-length paintings and murals that filled subway cars and was a key figure in the rise of street art. Visual artist Rammellzee (1960-2010) used multiple forms of artistic expression including painting, sculpture and performance art to fully express himself.
In the first show designed by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton – the 2019 spring and summer men’s wear series show, LV Trainer sports shoes made their debut, integrating traditional elements of basketball shoes, brand iconic design and exquisite craftsmanship. Designed by Abloh, the luxurious shape has undergone many evolutions in the Louis Vuitton men’s collection, and now it has become a classic design of the sneaker collection – “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sneaker Collaboration Collection” once again confirms its legendary status. Now a classic shoe in the Louis Vuitton menswear collection, the LV Trainer sneaker is available in low-top and high-top styles in leather. Each pair of LV Trainer sneakers is carefully crafted by the brand’s Fiesso d’Artico shoemaking workshop in Italy, which takes no less than 7 hours.
“White canvas:LV TrainerSports shoes cooperation series”exhibition
From February 24 to March 16, 2023, Louis Vuitton will hold the exhibition “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sneaker Collaboration Series” at Garage Traversi, a landmark building in Milan. This exhibition has the same name as the new product series. Louis Vuitton takes this opportunity to invite contemporary artists to reinterpret the classic LV Trainer sneakers through their own artistic creations. Curated by Sky Gellatly, the event marks the debut of a collaborative project featuring new interpretations of the LV Trainer sneaker featuring artists Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones and Rammellzee, the first two artists also featured in the opening exhibition. The exhibition includes original sneakers hand-painted by the three artists based on their respective works, as well as a multimedia installation documenting the collaboration process. A commercial version of the limited-edition LV Trainer sneaker is also on sale at the site.
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The exhibition “White Canvas: LV Trainer Sports Shoes Collaboration Series” originated from the vision of Virgil Abloh, former Louis Vuitton Menswear Artistic Director. He once commissioned Sky Gellatly to curate the exhibition, and proposed to “first promote a group of artists through the exhibition, and then create more opportunities for their art works through sneaker cooperation”. ICNCLST/ is a marketing and artist management agency whose CEO and co-founder, Gellatly, has successfully curated several influential art collaborations.
This exhibition focuses on the LV Trainer sneaker cooperation series. Other exhibits include various paintings: Lady Pink’s “Celtic Piece”, Lee Quiñones’s “SPLIT #1” and “Tablet 3”, Rammellzee’s “Incantation of the Queen Bee”, And the “L” and “V” sculptures from Rammellzee’s “Letters Racers” alphabet. The opening ceremony featured artists Lady Pink and Lee Quiñones appearing and painting live on a giant white canvas, which is also on display. A short film documenting the evolution of the collaborative sneaker from hand-painted artwork to a retail version, Louis Vuitton artisan craftsmanship and artist interview videos, and an immersive video projection installation presenting an enlarged version of the LV Trainer sneaker as a blank Canvas, decorated with the artist’s work.
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The exhibition was held at Garage Traversi in Milan’s Piazza San Babila, whose atmosphere echoes the artists’ creative spaces in New York, presenting a raw, industrial-style gallery environment. In the 1930s, Garage Traversi was built by the architects Giuseppe De Min and Alessandro Rimini, and was the first fully automatic garage in Italy at that time. Recently, Louis Vuitton’s flagship store on Via Montenapoleone is undergoing renovations. The location of Louis Vuitton’s limited-time store is Garage Traversi. Not long ago, the cooperation series between Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama was also released here. The selection of Milan as the venue for the “White Canvas” exhibition aims to pay tribute to Louis Vuitton’s Fiesso d’Artico professional shoemaking workshop in Italy, which is also the birthplace of the LV Trainer sneaker.
Partner
ICNCLST/ is a marketing and artist management agency whose CEO and co-founder is none other than Sky Gellatly. He has helped luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton launch successful collaborations and campaigns, bringing his expertise and insights into marketing, communications and branding. Prior to founding ICNCLST/, Gellatly worked as a managing partner at marketing agency Team Epiphany, as the first marketing director at HYPEBEAST North America, in charge of communications and partnerships for Flight Club, and as an editor at Condé Nast, MTV.com, and Complex duty. In addition to this, he is a professional DJ who has performed on tour with Grammy Award-winning musician Lupe Fiasco.
Lady Pink was born in Ecuador and grew up in New York. In 1979, she started graffiti creation, and soon became famous in the graffiti subculture circle. From 1979 to 1985, she continued to paint on subway cars. In 1982, she starred in the film “Wild Style” and became an icon for hip-hop lovers overnight. Lady Pink, 21, has her first solo exhibition at the Moore College of Art and Design. A leading figure in the rise of graffiti art, her paintings have been included in key art collections such as: Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands. She is quite accomplished in the field of fine arts, and her paintings are widely praised by art collectors.
Lee Quiñones was one of the most influential artists of the New York subway art movement, known for his complex compositions. Born in Puerto Rico in 1960 and raised in New York, he is one of the initiators of street art, painting on the streets of New York and on subway cars in the 1970s. Over the next decade, his paintings filled more than a hundred subway cars in New York’s MTA system before turning to studio work. In 1978, Lee Quiñones created the first handball court mural, a key event that fueled the rise of street art. He has had many solo exhibitions and his works have been exhibited all over the world. In 1980, Lee Quiñones held his first exhibition in New York at the White Pillar Gallery, transitioning spray paint from a moving object to a static canvas, creating a new artistic period since then.
Rammellzee (1960-2010) was a multi-faceted graffiti writer, visual artist, philosopher and musician. Born in Queens, he is of Italian and African American descent. In the mid-1970s, he began his brief graffiti career on the A train cars of the New York subway. After legally changing his name to the RAMM:ELL:ZEE equation, he conceived his manifesto and came up with “Gothic Futurism” and “Iconoclast Panzeris” theory. Rammellzee’s creative representations are diverse and rich works of art, reflecting the decay and chaos on the streets of New York, attracting the attention of businessmen in the urban art circle. By the early 1990s, he designed costumes, painted paintings, created statues, and created a series of characters and characters using discarded garbage and epoxy resin as raw materials.