Tunisian street artist and calligrapher, eL Seed, has teamed up with the French luxury Maison, Louis Vuitton, for the second time to customize the brand’s iconic monogram trunk.
Building upon the previous collaboration for Vuitton’s Foulards d’Artistes project, eL Seed worked on three luggage trunks that will be auctioned for the benefit of START, at Christie’s’ Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian, and Turkish Art Sale, on October 30th 2013, at 7pm. Founded as a non-profit organization by Art Dubai and the Al Madad Foundation, START provides art courses and cultural education to children with special needs across the Middle East and India.
The Tunisian artist worked on Louis Vuitton’s bestseller, the Alzer hard-sided luggage case, on which he left his signature calligraffiti, in golden and flashy hues. Inspired by Arabic calligraphy, eL Seed imagined graceful swirls, overlaying the classic LV-monogram pattern of three trunks.
In a conversation with Style.com/Arabia, eL Seed explained the meaning and evolution of his work: “This is a renaissance of an Islamic art. (…) You cannot take Islam out of calligraphy. You can’t disassociate it. This is a sacred art, even though we are not writing passages from the Koran. A lot of people think that I created calligraffiti – and actually everyone who does calligraffiti thinks that they invented the word – but in fact, in 1979, an exhibition was launched in New York called “Calligraffiti” and that is where it comes from.”
Currently eL Seed’s most recent work can be spotted in Doha, Qatar, where he is working on one of his biggest mural projects to date, commissioned by Qatar Museums Authority.
