Bottega Veneta - 2011/2012 Ad Campaign in Venice

I was on NYMag.com today and noticed a big ad for Bottega Veneta featuring what seemed like a beautifully shot behind the scenes video of their fall photo shoot in Venice. Turns out I was right and the video featured Creative Director Tomas Maier recounting the "art of collaboration" with esteemed photographer Robert Polidori. The video is in fact pretty amazing combining the beauty of Venetian architecture, Bottega Veneta designs and enchanting instrumental accompaniment.

Check out the video and get more info HERE. More info from the press release below:

The ad campaign was shot on location in March of 2011, at the Palazzo Papadapoli, a 16th-century building situated on the Grand Canal in Venice. It is the latest in Bottega Veneta’s one-of-a-kind creative collaborations featuring the talents of outstanding artists The Fall-Winter 2011/2012 collections center on extraordinary detail and unusual construction. 


Robert Polidori is a world-renowned photographer of rooms, architecture, and other human environments. His photography career began when he photographed the restoration of Versailles. He has since addressed a wide range of subjects and locations, including the aftermath of Chernobyl, Castro’s Havana, and the legacy of war in Beirut. In 2006 he was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to photograph New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The resulting exhibition drew the largest audience ever to attend one of the museum’s photography shows. He is a staff photographer for The New Yorker and his work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.


Polidori works with a custom-built large-format camera to take pictures filled with voluminous, voluptuous detail. His images capture a sense of time passing, of humanity and history revealed in what people leave behind. The emotional and temporal dimensions that Polidori brings to his detailed images are what led Bottega Veneta Creative Director Tomas Maier to approach him for the Fall-Winter campaign. “What is unusual about Robert’s work is that it both documents and interrogates,” says Maier. “His attention to detail creates layers of meaning that extend beyond the formal beauty of his images. I was interested in seeing what would result if he turned his lens on Bottega Veneta’s design and the brand’s roots in the Veneto, specifically Venice.” The shoot, which took place over two days in Venice, was the first time that Polidori had been commissioned to shoot with models. “Robert brought this great energy and open-minded sense of adventure to the shoot,” continues Maier. “It was a genuinely exciting collaboration.” Robert Polidori joins a long list of renowned artists who have contributed to the creation of Bottega Veneta’s advertising portfolio.

More on Polidori HERE.