Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. [1] From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in Milan, conceived as dialogues with acclaimed contemporary artists. [2] [1] In 2015, the Fondazione Prada opened a new, permanent facility in Milan.
In the past 20 years, it has also promoted a rich cultural programme, such as film festivals (Tribeca Film Festival at Fondazione Prada”, 2004; “Italian Kings of the Bs. Secret History of Italian Cinema, 1949–1976”, 2004; “Secret History of Asian Cinema”, 2005; “Secret History of Russian Cinema”, 2007), multi-disciplinary and philosophy talks and architecture and design projects (“Herzog & de Meuron, OMA/AMO Rem Koolhaas. Projects for Prada. Works in Progress”, 2001; “Unveiling the Prada Foundation”, 2008; “Rotor: Ex Limbo”, 2011. [3] [4] In 2011, the Fondazione Prada opened a new exhibition space in Venice, [5] the Ca’ Corner della Regina, a historic palazzo on the Grand Canal, which has hosted several collective exhibitions: “Fondazione Prada_Ca’ Corner”, 2011; “The Small Utopia. Ars multiplicata”, 2012, [6] “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013”, 2013 [7] [8] and "Art or Sound", 2014. [9]
Special international projects by the Fondazione include "Double Club" by Carsten Höller in London, [10] "Prada Transformer" by OMA in Seul [11] and "24h Museum" by Francesco Vezzoli at the Palais d’Iéna in Paris. [12] [13]
Between 2005 and 2009, on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, solo exhibitions by Francesco Vezzoli (2005), [14] Thomas Demand (2007), John Wesley (2009) [15] were presented at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice.
Other artists exhibited included Anish Kapoor (1995), Louise Bourgeois (1997), Sam Taylor-Wood (1998), Walter De Maria (1999), Enrico Castellani (2001), Steve McQueen (2005), Tom Sachs (2006), Nathalie Djurberg (2008) and John Baldessari (2010) [2]
On 9 May 2015, the Fondazione Prada unveiled its new permanent Milan venue, [16] in Largo Isarco. The new Milan venue of the Fondazione, conceived by architecture firm OMA—led by Rem Koolhaas—expands the repertoire of spatial typologies in which art can be exhibited and shared with the public. The complex, which is the result of the transformation of a former distillery dating back to the 1910s, is articulated by an architectural configuration which combines preexisting buildings with three new structures, named “Podium”, “Cinema” and “Torre”. The hallmark of the new venue is the so-called “Haunted House”, a 4-story building, clad in 24 carat gold foil, where pieces from the permanent collection of art of the Fondazione Prada are permanently on display. [17]
Located in Largo Isarco, in the South of Milan, the compound has a gross surface area of 19,000 m2/205,000 ft2, of which 11,000 m2/118,000 ft2 is dedicated as exhibition space. The entrance building welcomes visitors to two new facilities, developed through special collaborations: a kids' area designed by a group of students from the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles, and a bar where director Wes Anderson has recreated the typical mood of old Milan cafés. [18]
On the occasion of the opening of its new Milan venue, Fondazione Prada presented a wide range of activities. Robert Gober and Thomas Demand realized site-specific installations in dialogue with the industrial architecture and the new spaces in the compound. Roman Polanski explores the cinematographic inspirations behind his artistic vision, through a new documentary and a series of film screenings. Selections of artworks from the Prada Collection are presented in a series of thematic exhibitions.
In September 2015, the Fondazione hosted its very first performing arts project, “Atlante del gesto”, a series of choreographic actions conceived by Virgilio Sieni. In November 2015, Fondazione Prada presented an anthological exhibition devoted to Gianni Piacentino (Turin, 1945) and curated by Germano Celant. The thematic exhibition “Recto Verso” presented in December 2015, showcased artworks that consciously foreground the hidden, concealed or forgotten phenomenon of “the back.”
In early 2016, the Cinema at Fondazione Prada hosted “Flesh, Mind and Spirit” is a selection of 15 films chosen by Academy Award-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Mexico City, 1963) in collaboration with Elvis Mitchell, film critic and Curator at LACMA of Los Angeles.
On 4 February 2016, "Goshka Macuga: To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll" opened to the public [19] - developed by artist Goshka Macuga for Fondazione Prada's spaces, it brings together reflections on seminal issues such as time, beginnings and endings, collapse and renewal.
One of the museum's first exhibits was a large collection of works by Edward Kienholz. The exhibition included Five Car Stud, an installation that had not been available for public view. [20]
In 2016, the Fondazione launched Osservatorio, a photography gallery on the fifth and sixth floors of Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. [21]
The Fondazione Prada was the private sector partner of a series of retrospective in Italian Cinema, first launched at the 61st Venice International Film Festival called The Secret History of Italian Cinema. [22]
The Fondazione operates an exhibition in the 18th century Palazzo Corner della Regina, which now also houses the History Archives of the Contemporary Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia. From May and throughout summer 2015, both locations were thematically linked by two antiquity art exhibitions, the Serial Classic (ending on 24 August 2015) and the Portable Classic (ending on 13 September 2015), devised by Salvatore Settis. [23] [24]
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a representative of Deconstructivism and is the author of Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.
Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. is a Swiss architecture firm headquartered in Basel (Switzerland), founded by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international architectural firm with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. The firm is currently led by eight partners - Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and managing partner and architect David Gianotten.
Venice Biennale of Architecture is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic shifting the calendar to uneven years. It is the architecture section under the overall Venice Biennale and was officially established in 1980, even though architecture had been a part of the Venice Art Biennale since 1968.
Germano Celant was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" in the 1967 Flash Art piece "Appunti Per Una Guerriglia", which would become the manifesto for the Arte Povera artistic and political movement. He wrote many articles and books on the subject.
Madelon Vriesendorp is a Dutch artist, painter, sculptor and art collector. She was married to Rem Koolhaas and best known as one of the co-founders of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the early 1970s. Vriesendorp would often create visuals and graphics for OMA in the early years.
Goshka Macuga is an artist based in London. She was one of the four nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize.
The Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art is a museum in Hannam-dong, Yongsan District, Seoul, South Korea. It is run by the Samsung Foundation of Culture.
The Prada Transformer was a temporary, shape-shifting pavilion located in Seoul, South Korea. It had four different apparent shapes, depending on the function for which the pavilion is needed at the moment. The pavilion was commissioned by Prada and designed by Rem Koolhaas' architecture firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture. It was inaugurated in April 2009 and dismantled in October 2009.
Stefano Boeri is an Italian architect and urban planner, and a founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti. Among his most known projects are the Vertical Forest in Milan, the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, and the House of the Sea of La Maddalena. He is the professor of urban planning at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Petra Blaisse is a British-born Dutch designer. Her work is an intersection of the professions of architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, textile design, and exhibition design.
Francesco Vezzoli is an Italian artist and filmmaker.
Francesco Bonami is an Italian art curator and writer who is currently Honorary Director of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin. He lives in Milan and Manhattan, New York.
Patrizio Bertelli is an Italian billionaire businessman and the former co-chief executive officer (CEO), with his wife Miuccia Prada of Prada Group. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$4.5 billion.
Ducks Scéno is a French company based in Villeurbanne specializing in scenography and museography.
Louise Lemoine is a French video artist and filmmaker. She is an associate of the film production and publishing company Bêka & Partners.
Factory International runs Manchester International Festival and operates Aviva Studios, a cultural space in Manchester, England.
Concrete is a multi-disciplinary space located on Alserkal Avenue in the Al Quoz district of Dubai. It is the first building in the United Arab Emirates to be completed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). With multiple configurations, the 600-square-metre Concrete has double-height ceilings, movable walls and a translucent facade that can be positioned to create indoor-outdoor experiences.
Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are two architectural artists and filmmakers. Their films focus on the relationship of people and design, emphasising the presence of everyday life within some of the most iconic architectural projects of recent decades. Bêka's and Lemoine's complete work has been acquired in 2016 by MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York, and is now part of its permanent collection.
Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form was an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern curated by the Swiss curator, Harald Szeemann, in 1969. The show is considered a groundbreaking landmark for Postminimalist and Arte Povera work which, according to the New York Times, was "arguably the most famous exhibition of new art of the postwar era."
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