FONDAZIONE PRADA: A NEW EXHIBIT

Fondazione Prada: a new exhibit. It is a cultural institution established in 1993 whose object is to organize contemporary art exhibitions and support projects about architecture, dance, and cinema.
Until ten years ago, art shows were based in Milan, then in 2010 the Fondazione purchased the 18th century Ca’ Corner della Regina on the Grand Canal in Venice, the former seat of History Archive of Contemporary Art La Biennale di Venezia.
Since then, the building has hosted several solos and group shows intending to retrace the career of international artists or Avant-Garde movements.
The upcoming exhibit is “Stop painting“, designed by the German artist Peter Fischly from 22 May to 21 November 2021, who described it as “a kaleidoscope of repudiated gestures”.

Fischly focuses on distinct breakups in art history in the last one and a half-century, associated with specific social facts and new cultural trends.
According to the curator, the spreading of digital communication might put an end to painting practices or help to find a further course.
In this sense, the show intends to look forward to the future and at the same time detect five primary ruptures in the past that radically changed painting procedures without marking the “death of art”.
At first, the invention of photography wiped out the concept of uniqueness and originality in art, together with self-expression.

The second crisis caused by the ready-made and collage in the early 1910s moved paintings to a new level. Everyday objects could be displayed in museums and assume the title of artworks, just because of the location.
The idea of authorship is the third issue, suggested by the philosopher Roland Barthes in “The death of the author”, as a consequence of the two previous ones.
As for the fourth issue, in the late 1960s, Avant-Garde artists developed harsh criticism against traditional painting techniques, on behalf of assemblage-based artifacts.
The last topic highlighted in the show is about the crisis of art critics in mature capitalistic societies.

Two French sociologists, Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, asserted critical theories against Avant-Garde notions, supported by great scholars over the past decades. It happened in the 1980s, when new trends in painting were rising to prominence.

A total of a hundred and ten artworks will be on display in ten different sections, including a site-specific project by the curator on the imposing ground level.

The large upper floors host works by Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Lucio Fontana, Niki de Saint Phalle, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, and many others.
Some of them, like Carol Rama, Rosemarie Trockel, and Theaster Gates joined past editions of La Biennale Arti Visive.

Our expert guide will help you unravel the meanings of so many art pieces, which are the direct expression of the world we are leaving.
At the end of the tour “Fondazione Prada: a new exhibit”, Modern Art will not look so mysterious anymore!