![Fondazione Prada, Milano, Italy (Unsplash oakcRAYgmDo)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Fondazione_Prada%2C_Milano%2C_Italy_%28Unsplash_oakcRAYgmDo%29.jpg)
Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by
Miuccia Prada
Miuccia Bianchi Prada (; born Maria Bianchi on 10 May 1949) is an Italian billionaire fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of Prada and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. As of October 2021, ''Forbes'' estimated her n ...
and
Patrizio Bertelli
Patrizio Bertelli (born 6 April 1946), 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.
Life an ...
since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture.
From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, conceived as dialogues with acclaimed contemporary artists.
In 2015, the Fondazione Prada opened a new, permanent facility in Milan.
History
![Ca' Corner della Regina (Venice)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Ca%27_Corner_della_Regina_%28Venice%29.jpg)
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.
In 2011, the Fondazione Prada opened a new exhibition space in Venice, 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, “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013”, 2013 and "Art or Sound", 2014.
Special international projects by the Fondazione include "Double Club" by
Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller (born December 1961) is a German artist. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.Alice Rawsthorn (January 2012)"Cliff Hanger - The Ghanaian home of artists Carsten Höller and Marcel Odenbach goes above—and beyond" ''W Magazi ...
in London, "Prada Transformer" by OMA in Seul and "24h Museum" by
Francesco Vezzoli
Francesco Vezzoli (born 1971) is an Italian artist and filmmaker.
Work
Vezzoli studied at the Central Saint Martins School of Art in London from 1992 to 1995. In his early works from 1994 to 1996, he reenvisioned twentieth-century masterpieces by ...
at the Palais d’Iéna in Paris.
Between 2005 and 2009, on the occasion of the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, solo exhibitions by
Francesco Vezzoli
Francesco Vezzoli (born 1971) is an Italian artist and filmmaker.
Work
Vezzoli studied at the Central Saint Martins School of Art in London from 1992 to 1995. In his early works from 1994 to 1996, he reenvisioned twentieth-century masterpieces by ...
(2005),
Thomas Demand
Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.
Demand had his first solo exhibition at Tanit Galerie in Munich ...
(2007),
John Wesley
John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...
(2009) were presented at the
Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice.
Other artists exhibited included
Anish Kapoor
Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...
(1995),
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
(1997),
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha Louise Taylor-Johnson OBE ( née Taylor-Wood; 4 March 1967) is a British filmmaker and photographer. Her directorial feature film debut was 2009's '' Nowhere Boy'', a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter ...
(1998),
Walter De Maria
Walter Joseph De Maria Roberta Smith (July 26, 2013)Walter De Maria, Artist on Grand Scale, Dies at 77 '' New York Times''. (October 1, 1935July 25, 2013) was an American artist, sculptor, illustrator and composer, who lived and worked in New Y ...
(1999),
Enrico Castellani
Enrico Castellani (4 August 1930 – 1 December 2017) was an Italian artist. He was active in Italy from the early 1960s, and associated with Piero Manzoni and . Castellani is known for his "paintings of light". He studied at the Ecole Nationale S ...
(2001),
Steve McQueen
Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...
(2005),
Tom Sachs
Tom Sachs (born July 26, 1966) is an American contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City.
Life and early career
Sachs was born in New York City on July 26, 1966. He grew up in Westport, Connecticut, attending high school at Green ...
(2006),
Nathalie Djurberg
Nathalie Djurberg (born 1978 in Lysekil) is a Swedish video artist who lives and works in Berlin.
Life and work
Djurberg is best known for producing claymation short films that are faux-naïve, but graphically violent and erotic. Their main ch ...
(2008) and
John Baldessari
John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.
Initially a painter, ...
(2010)
[
]
Venues in Milan
Largo Isarco
On 9 May 2015, the Fondazione Prada unveiled its new permanent Milan venue, in Largo Isarco. The new Milan venue of the Fondazione, conceived by architecture firm OMA—led by Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) 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 re ...
—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.
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.
On the occasion of the opening of its new Milan venue, Fondazione Prada presented a wide range of activities. Robert Gober
Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.
Early life and education
Gober was born in Wallingford, Connecticut and studied literat ...
and Thomas Demand
Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.
Demand had his first solo exhibition at Tanit Galerie in Munich ...
realized site-specific installations in dialogue with the industrial architecture and the new spaces in the compound. Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a (né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two ...
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
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the hum ...
(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 - developed by artist Goshka Macuga
Goshka Macuga (; born 1967 in Warsaw, Poland as Małgorzata Macuga) is an artist based in London. She was one of the four nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize.
Life and work
Goshka Macuga was born in Poland. A graduate of Central St. Martins Colle ...
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
Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American Installation art, installation artist and assemblage (art), assemblage sculpture, sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he ...
. The exhibition included Five Car Stud, an installation that had not been available for public view.
Osservatorio
In 2016, the Fondazione launched Osservatorio, a photography gallery on the fifth and sixth floors of Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II () is Italy's oldest active shopping gallery and a major landmark of Milan in Italy. Housed within a four-story double arcade in the centre of town, the ''Galleria'' is named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first ki ...
.
Venues in Venice
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
The 61st annual Venice International Film Festival was held between 1 and 11 September 2004. The festival opened with Steven Spielberg's ''The Terminal'', and closed with Katsuhiro Otomo's '' Steamboy''. The Golden Lion was awarded to the film ' ...
called ''The Secret History of Italian Cinema''.
The Fondazione operates an exhibition in the 18th century Palazzo Corner della Regina
Palazzo Corner della Regina, commonly known as Ca' Corner della Regina, is a Baroque-style palace in the Sestiere Santa Croce of the city of Venice, Italy. In the English language, the title conforms with Palace of the Queen from the "Corner (or ...
, which now also houses the History Archives of the Contemporary Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
. 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.
References
{{Authority control
Arts centres in Italy
Art museums and galleries in Milan
Arts organisations based in Italy
Contemporary art galleries in Italy
Culture in Milan
Cultural organisations based in Italy
Foundations based in Italy
Arts organizations established in the 1990s
1990s establishments in Italy
Prada
Arts foundations based in Italy
Arts foundations based in Europe