For this first exhibition, Vault continues to conjure up a temporal flux by calling upon 29 handpicked artists to reflect upon the House’s century of heritage and envision what comes next. Within each artwork, the artist is asked to represent Gucci’s past and present icons with signs of its future. Leveraging on cryptoart natives as well as more traditional creators experimenting with digital art forms, the initial slate of artists included names such as Alanna Vanacore, Alex Trochut, Alexis Christodoulou, Antoni Tudisco, eBoy, Ignasi Monreal, Ignorance1, Jordan Schiffer, VEXX, and many more.

As both a spotlight and a platform, the gallery progresses Vault’s commitment to supporting and empowering the talents of today and tomorrow, and speaks to Gucci’s vision of continuously pushing the boundaries to include ever-diverse points of view.

The first theme, “The Next 100 Years of Gucci” was chosen as the year 2022 was the year after Gucci celebrated its 100th anniversary. The artists were asked to express what to them the next 100 years of the brand would look like. Furthermore, the Vault Art Space platform is created into the creativities of Vault, the concept store launched by Gucci in 2021, which is known for its colorful patterns.

The foundation of the Vault Art Space, which is built upon blockchain, allows smart contracts to be set up in such a way that the artists not only gets recognition through the amplification of a big luxury brand but also through taking a piece of the pie when it comes to the final selling bid of the artworks. As the smart contract allows the artist to immediately receive its rightful percentage of the revenue straight into their cryptowallet. The partnership with SuperRare allowed the Vault Art Space to both hit a luxury fashion target (through Gucci’s client base) as well as an already established digital art collector community, giving maximum visibility to both the platform and the artists involved within the first exhibition.

The Vault Art Space launched in June of 2022 with a drop mechanism. Starting June 23rd, followed with a drop on June 30th and July 7th. Over the course of those 3 weeks, every week approximately 22 artworks dropped each week for a total of 68 artworks. 28 artists were involved who received a brief to envision the Next 100 Years of Gucci and to develop artworks within their own artistic style. During those initial 3 weeks, each week one Twitter Space was hosted where artist, philosopher, curator, and writer Rowynn Dumont spoke to participating artists about the creation and the collecting of art today The launch of the Vault Art Space platform was enhanced through a digital billboard activation in Times Square, NYC. The digital art platform works with an auction mechanism where once a bid is placed, the counter counts down for 8 days.

- 30 out of 68 artworks received a bid (and were minted) with other 38 artworks still available for purchase.

- One artwork got traded on the secondary market

- Over 170 ETH worth of artworks was sold since the inception, outperforming the volume of some more established art house’s web3 art platforms

- The Twitter Spaces were received very well with Gucci again enlarging its presence in the world of art and web3 enthusiasts

- The platform has received approx. 100k visitors since its inception

- Highest bid was 25 ETH