Fondazione Prada

An Introduction

09 May 2015 - 16 Apr 2016

Goshka Macuga
Al la filo de la homo kiu manĝis la skribrulaĵon, 2016
Performer: Valeria Sara Costantin. Photo: Delfino Sisto Legnani Studio
AN INTRODUCTION
9 May 2015 – 17 April 2016

Once a laboratory within the former industrial complex, the galleria Sud—flowing through the Deposito’s wide spaces—hosts “An Introduction”: an intense exhibition project—emerged from a dialogue between Miuccia Prada and Germano Celant—alluding to a path between institutional and personal, leading to methods of research and collecting. It intertwines a study and passion for art that has taken on public and private characteristics and led to the opening of the Fondazione.

Here the interest for the aesthetic and political issues addressed by artists is compared to the knowledge and the practice of experimental and historic cultures, from the Renaissance to modernity, evolving from a basic, minimalist approach, to a complex museum display.
The sequence of spaces and the choice of artworks, installed in relation to colors and period materials, suggest an itinerary of interests and commitment. It begins with a reflection on the self then develops with a choice of visual territories connected to the artistic events of the 1960s, from New Dada to Minimal Art.

This research, and the determination to collect its testimony, has influenced the “system of life,” fostering passion and involvement with an art that questions reality. Investigation of the contemporary artistic narratives orients knowledge toward a temporal totality— with its objects and environments—from antiquity to the present day.
The translation of notions and passions into collection is documented through the quadreria: a gallery of artworks that indicates the wide-ranging oscillation of attention for art’s manifestations – and through two large-scale artist’s installations by Nathalie Djurberg (2008) and John Baldessari (2009), both conceived for their solo shows at Fondazione Prada, in which different languages coexist and creative territories merge.

The result is a body of artworks and objects that supply information about the past, present and future of an existential adventure. They introduce an image of impassioned, committed people who have followed a route of active and radiating awareness: the reaction to the vital strength of ideas becomes the focus of a lifetime.
 

Tags: John Baldessari, Nathalie Djurberg