The three locations of Fondazione Prada in Milan and Venice are open all summer long and present a broad range of cultural offerings in contemporary art, film, photography, and science.
Useless Bodies? Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition, in Milan until August 22
Useless Bodies? addresses the state of the body today in the post-industrial era, when our physical presence is losing its centrality or maybe becoming utterly unnecessary. It was designed for four gallery spaces and the courtyard of the Milan location. Every element of our life is affected by this change, including our working environments, health, interpersonal relationships, and how we conduct ourselves in public. Through a series of immersive installations and new works, each exhibition room explores a distinct everyday context (the gym, the house, the business, or the museum itself). The initiative by Elmgreen and Dragset aspires to contribute to fresh discussions about how to reclaim the body in coming societies.
“Questioning Bodies” podcast series, online project
The “Questioning Bodies” episodes bring the body back into the center of intellectual inquiry through ten open-ended questions. Some of the essays that were written for the 500-page book Useless Bodies?, Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition’s thematic extension, are turned into podcasts as part of the series. It is a reader that offers a variety of viewpoints from more than 35 authors—philosophers, artists, writers, scientists, and thinkers—who share their thoughts on the state of physical presence in our time. Up to the conclusion of the show, the ten podcasts will be available on the website, Soundcloud, and Spotify accounts of Fondazione Prada.
Role Play group show, at Osservatorio in Milan until September 26
The idea of creating and searching for potential alternate identities, vacillating between the real, ideal, and universal selves, is explored through role play. By 11 international artists, including Meriem Bennani, Juno Calypso, Cao Fei, Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, Beatrice Marchi, Darius Mikys, Narcissister, Haruka Sakaguchi & Griselda San Martin, Tomoko Sawada, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, and Amalia Ulman, it features a selection of photographic, video, and performing works. These artists explore the ever-evolving ideas of individuality and identity through playing with gender cliches, stereotypes, sense of place, and future perspectives. Understanding everyone’s essence and persona may be achieved through role-playing, the creation of alter egos, and the proliferation of self.
“Multiple Canvases” film program, at the Milan Cinema until October 1
The scientific advisory board of the interdisciplinary project Human Brains collaborated with the artists Elmgreen & Dragset to create the video program “Multiple Canvases.” The screenings are held in Milan’s Fondazione Prada Cinema on every Friday and Saturday from July 1 through July 30, and from September 2 through October 1. A projection room characterized by constant visual osmosis between the inner space, the courtyard, and the other structures of the architectural compound designed by Rem Koolhaas will be created in July when the moveable walls of the Cinema building will be totally open.
Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea exhibition project, in Venice until November 27
The neuroscience-focused rigorous research process that Fondazione Prada has been doing since 2018—driven by a keen interest in comprehending the brain, the complexity of its functioning, and its significance to human history—has produced Human Brains. Udo Kittelmann and Taryn Simon collaborated on the exhibition’s curation, titled Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea. The show explores a history of neuroscientific knowledge-making characterised by rigor, breakthrough, and discovery, as well as error and ambiguity, and it takes place on three floors of the Ca’ Corner della Regina building. It explores the contours of consciousness, the gaps in our knowledge of science, and what is known and what is unknown about the human brain.The next phase of the Human Brains project will be “Preserving the Brain,” a forum on neurodegenerative diseases, scheduled in Milan in September and October 2022.