Acting Role

The whimsical Gucci Autumn/Winter 2019 collection features plenty of retro references. Men’s Folio discovers at the press event in Bangkok.

- John Ng

Gucci teamed up with London art magazine Frieze to commission award-wining filmmaker, artist and director Wu Tsang, Turner Prize-winning Jeremy Deller, Arthur Jafa, and emerging video artist Josh Blaaberg to create a series of films taking cue from the Second Summer of Love – the summers of 1988 and 1989 when the explosion of acid house music and youth culture culminating in mass euphoric rave parties which swept through the United Kingdom. 30 years on, it continues to resonate in not only all genres of modern music, but also contemporary visual culture from street style to fashion runway. We visited Bangkok Screen Room for the screening of two of the films during the recent Gucci Autumn/Winter 2019 press event.

What does liberation mean to you? Titled Into a Space of Love, the first film by Tsang pays tribute to the history and legacy of New York acid house music. She conceptualises and lenses the magnitude and deeply emotional experiences of a predominantly black and Latino queer circle as well as the real struggle of the community as a whole and people of colour movements with profound dialogues and an utmost sense of sensitivity.

It combines past, present and the not-too-distant future visions of New York nightlife from tastemaking DJs, performers and activists, and questions the uroborosian tension between underground culture and appropriation. It is with reverence in which Tsang films the individuals.

They are captured in their most natural environment and in their everyday costume or clothes, while they express themselves and what they feel. Kudos to Gucci and Frieze for recognising the cultural importance of this tribe.