Embracing Instagram’s creative landscape over the past three years with dedicated projects in which artists play with House motifs, Gucci has published and promoted these special works with a series of hashtags.
Now, for the first time, the House is collaborating with a single artist on an Instagram project. Exploring the nature of time and featuring Gucci watches, #TimeToParr is a portfolio of specially-commissioned work by renowned British documentary photographer Martin Parr.
Famous for his body of work capturing images of everyday life, Parr enjoys the surprise of the caught moment – an instant when a person, scene or social situation is frozen by the camera, often providing a humorous comment on human nature or cultural or societal rituals and traditions. Parr is considered by many to be the preeminent proponent of an anthropological, satirical genre of photography; though he argues that his eye is never cruel, simply observational and curious.
For Gucci, Parr traveled around the world shooting people and timepieces in nine locations that have been designated Gucci Places by the House. These all have a significance for Gucci, either as a site where events relating to the House have taken place (often where advertising campaigns have been created or staged), or where Creative Director Alessandro Michele has found inspiration. The Gucci Places featured in #TimeToParr are: Chatsworth House in Derbyshire; Bibo in Hong Kong; Waltz in Tokyo; the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome; Maison Assouline in London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles; Castello Sonnino in Montespertoli (Florence); the Gucci Garden in Florence; and the Dapper Dan Atelier in Harlem (New York).
#TimeToParr is an Instagram-only project, which is a first for Martin Parr. Traveling to the Gucci Places and seeking out people and scenarios that fit with his wry take on life, he has created a series of intimate and authentic pictures. As with all of Parr’s work, the stars of these are not well-known; they are the anonymous, unknown populace of the real world – in this case, employees and owners of the Gucci Places featured, as well as visitors to the same. This visual record of his journey conveys Parr’s love of life and his joyous, passionate appreciation of the unexpected – his fascination with the real, and sometimes almost grotesque.
The watches included in the pictures are: G-Frame models, G-Timeless pieces, Gucci’s new Eryx watches, and the Le Marché des Merveilles Secret Watch.
#TimeToParr officially launched on Gucci’s Instagram on July 19th, 2018.
