Guzzini Street Collection
12/05/2021
Guzzini Street Collection: six urban artists add their own style to our thermal bottles.
We would have to go back a long way to find the first time Guzzini entrusted its products to the creative hands and minds of internationally famous artists, in a strong pop spirit very much in tune with the company’s style.
From Ugo Nespolo to David Gerstein down to our own times, with Lorenzo Marini and his distinctive interpretation of the alphabet used to decorate everyday items, not forgetting “Soirée, La Luce del Pensiero: l’arte è il destino del design”, the exhibition at Fortezza da Basso in Florence featuring twenty artists of international fame led by the light of Joseph Beuys’ genius.
Art and design have always been at the core of Guzzini’s business, and this year it has decided to give this approach a highly contemporary character: six Italian urban artists have personalised the thermal travel bottles designed by Spalvieri&Del Ciotto, in their own individual styles.
The bottle, able to keep beverages at constant temperature (12 hours for hot and 24 hours for cold drinks) is made from stainless steel, with drip-proof, leak-proof airtight cap. Shatterproof and impact resistant, it is easy to fill thanks to its wide mouth, and it features a non-slip, anti-scratch bottom.
This bottle is without a doubt the most urban of all the items in the Guzzini On The Go collection: from office to gym and from jogging to leisure time.
“The idea came about through a happenstance encounter with one of our six chosen artists, Skolp,” company Chairman Domenico Guzzini explained. “We wanted something original, which would convey vitality and beauty without conforming to the usual stylistic and aesthetic rules. We had in mind an object that would be functional but distinctive. That would speak the language of a contemporary art form.”
The result is the six Street Bottles, belonging to the Street Collection: six different ways of dialoguing with shapes and colours, geometrical and round forms, black and white, produced using digital printing, which improves and enhances the brightness of the various hues. Each of the six artists has decorated the bottle in their own graphic style, adding their own tag, and choosing a predominant colour for the attractive pack in which the thermal bottle is supplied. The Street Collection is a special Edition within the ICONS section of the Guzzini catalogue: a unique capsule with design values as exclusive as those found in the world of fashion.
And here are the six bottles and the six artists who created them:
DIIAL
Italian visual artist and designer, born in Como, on the graffiti writing scene since the early 2000s. His work is denoted by an original, individual approach to lettering and aesthetically pleasing use of volumes and spaces.
His letters are transformed into abstract forms and the immaculate lines intersect the empty spaces in effects which make his works recognisable at a glance. Blocks and gaps, black and white: the opposites that give vitality to his creations on urban walls are now reflected on the forms of the thermal bottle.
Etnik, who was born in Stockholm and lived for some time at Vinci (Florence), now lives and works in Turin. He has been directing his artistic energies into the world of graffiti writing since 1992 and has worked as an urban artist for over 20 years, with commissions from public and private sector organisations in Italy, Europe and the United States. Lush, colourful natural forms erupt into the city’s architecture, breaking it down with an influx of life and joy!
MR. THOMS
Born in Rome in 1979, Mister Thoms began painting graffiti in 1996 and is currently one of Italy’s most famous street artists. His rich talent finds expression not only in urban art but also in graphics and illustration, with a fine balance between ironic humour and expressive concept. He has a flair for transforming ordinary places into extraordinary locations. Definitely the most figurative of the six chosen street artists, he is the only one to create protagonists who ironize on, observe and also criticise the world around us.
NICO 189
Nico189 is a designer and illustrator based in Milan. It was in the late 1990s that he began to paint along the streets of southern Italy, exploring a spontaneous visual style, using simple lines and geometrical forms initially inspired by the New York Wild Style; in fact, he was chosen to take part in the 63rd annual exhibition of that city’s Society of Illustrators. Often comprising urban landscapes and minimalist motifs, Nico189’s work has a highly recognisable visual style.
SKOLP
Born in Bari and a graduate in Communication Design from the IUAV in Venice, he started to design graffiti in 1997. He has always preferred to paint in urban spaces, where he expresses himself to the full in a combination of graffiti and walldesign. Nico Skolp has painted numerous urban art works in Italy and in many European cities. His work entered the Banca d’Italia art collection in 2020. The sharp lines of the geometrical forms, the contrasting colours, the successions of recurrent shapes: all this gives Skolp’s works high impact and a strong personality.
ZEUS40
Luca ”Zeus40“ Caputo was born in Naples on 8 February 1980 and during his 21-year career he has been invited to take part at the top graffiti events and exhibited in various international shows. He has undertaken numerous urban restyling projects and organises writing courses and workshops to promote the aerosol culture. He partners a large number of brands and he has been an ambassador for Belton Molotow, one of the world’s biggest spray producers, since 2017. He started working on large surfaces in 2018 and has produced three large murals in Italy’s Campania region.
