During a dinner on April 28th, the Whitney Museum of American Art will be host to a wine auction of sorts. But participants at the event and live online (www.sothebys.com) won’t be bidding just for the wine. Each of the 23 bottles up at auction will be adorned with a label designed by artists Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh. It’s part of Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista, a program that asks artists to design bottles in the spirit of the Italian wine producer’s vintage series. This year, Amer and Farkhondeh worked off the idea of l’armonia (harmony).
The artists created hand-painted, threaded, and printed labels that were later placed on three exclusive sets of large format bottles that read “Happy Ever After.”
“Just as artists take raw elements and make them into something beautiful, Ornellaia uses the same process to create each new vintage. The similarity of these two worlds inspired us to create a series of labels that not only portray the harmony in the 2007 vintage, but the harmony between art and wine,” said Amer. It also inspired her to design a garden installation at the Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s Tuscan estate. Proceeds from the auction will go towards the Whitney’s modern and contemporary art conservation efforts.
