Ryan McGinness’ Hennessy Very Special Limited Edition Bottle Hits Canada

Ryan McGinness’s bold work can now be a permanent fixture in your liquor cabinet.

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This fall luxury cognac brand Hennessy continues their on-going artist collaboration series with a limited edition bottle designed by New York-based artist Ryan McGinness. It’s the brand’s fifth artist partnership in five years, and the collaboration falls during their 250th anniversary year.

Previously, the V.S bottle has been re-imagined by world-renowned artists such as KAWS, Futura, Os Gemeos, and Shepard Fairey.

Of course, McGinness brings his own signature touch to the classic cognac bottle. The iconic Hennessy V.S label that hits shelves this month in Canada features a vibrant pattern in fluorescent colours that glow under black light.

McGinness places a lot of stock in the process and he was given complete creative control from Hennessy. When he sat down with us to describe the unexpected collaboration earlier this year he described the experience as an "explosion of life" inspired by his monumental "Black Holes" series.

"When we were initially talking about making artwork for the bottle, we talked about what body of my work would be a good match," McGinness told Complex Canada. "We decided on the 'Black Holes' series because that particular body of work was developed from my interest in contemporary symbols and images that express wealth and luxury. I felt the bottle was a perfect canvas to extend the series… And, just visually it made sense."

The collaboration took a year and McGinness applied his signature "elements < compounds < mixtures" creation process in designing the Very Special Limited Edition bottle. It wasn’t an easy undertaking... There were numerous challenges along the way and the extra costs of printing black light works. "It was actually a technical challenge for Hennessy to [print] the detail of these fine fluorescent lines," describes McGinness about the collaboration. "But, I love using fluorescent and black lights, because it forces a real world experience of the work." He also spoke about the parallels he found between his work and the process of making high-quality cognac.

"They make cognac the same way that I make paintings; that was really surprising. I make these little drawings, which I call elements, and then I combine these little elements into compounds. This is the same process in chemistry. Compounds are used to make mixtures, which are like the paintings and sculptures and installations. All my work gets distilled down to these little elements. I found that same process in the making of cognac"

And, yes. McGinness is a cognac drinker.

Most interesting about the collaboration? The American artist was encouraged to reinterpret every element of Hennessy's Very Special bottle – including its iconic coat of arms. "The fact that Hennessy let me change the family crest speaks volumes about their openness to new ideas," says McGinness.

Ryan McGinness' Hennessy Very Special Limited Edition bottle is available this month at select LCBO locations across Canada.

For more information about Hennessy please visit: www.hennessy.com.

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