PUMA and Ryan McGinley Introduce Art Film featuring Urban Mobility Edition Bag

PUMA introduces Urban Mobility, a new venture into the premium accessories category, an entry into a brand new market segment. Adapted from the Urban Mobility Small Cargo Bag, the Urban Mobility Edition Bag takes its inspiration from industrial design and is a first move into the luxury accessories market for PUMA.

To celebrate the launch of the bag, PUMA and Ryan McGinley teamed up with the Serpentine Gallery to create a short film to set the mood and feeling of the PUMA Urban Mobility Collection. The film focuses on the celebration of movement and freedom. McGinley directs his subjects, friends & models alike, in a cinema vérité mode thus creating a fantasy world of color, visuals and music.

The film features the Urban Mobility Edition Bag and PUMA 8-Speed Urban Mobility Bike. A nude couple are riding the bikes carrying the bags and lead the viewer on a journey of innocence and freedom. It was shot in the legendary Woodstock, New York, the location of the famous 1969 Woodstock festival. It explores a beautiful world that doesn't exist, a fantasy. The life Ryan McGinley might wish he was living.

Ryan McGinley is a new voice in image making. The newness of his pictures lies in part in his subject's total awareness of the camera. They pose, they perform, they are enjoying themselves, but they are not narcissistic.

"I am interested in reaching a broader audience with my work. It's one of my goals. Youth, movement, and freedom are the ideas that inspire my work. It was great to have the full support of Puma to complete this vision," says Ryan McGinley.

There is a contemporary romanticism in his images that feels fresh, the depiction of a life utopia, which can be achieved only in the communal group. In other words, McGinley produces images that have not existed previously.

At the age of twenty-four, Ryan McGinley had his first show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in the following year P.S.1/MoMA presented his work. Furthermore, he has recently been honoured as Young Photographer of the Year by the International Centre of Photography, New York.

His work with PUMA in creating this video is the first stage in the exploration of the PUMA Urban Mobility concept, later on in the year will see Directors of the Serpentine Gallery, Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist announce a very special collaboration with PUMA and Ryan McGinley for Spring Summer 2008.

Puma: http://www.puma.com/
Ryan McGinley: http://www.ryanmcginley.com/
Serpentine Gallery: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/

---

---