Posted on October 29, 2013
By Sylvain Bourmeau (Venice)
INTERVIEW Initiator of the exhibition, Miuccia Prada is a scathing look at the current contemporary art:
PhD in Political Science and Communist activist and feminist, Miuccia Prada took over and relaunched in 1978 the company founded by his grandfather in Milan sixty-five years earlier. Besides Prada, become one of the empires of fashion, she has developed a taste for contemporary art, including through a foundation that places open to Milan in the summer of 2015.
How did the idea of “re-do” the legendary exhibition Szeemann was held in Bern in 1969?
It’s me who got the idea. I read the newspaper Szeemann when I tried what the next exhibition at Ca ‘Corner della Regina. The Prada Foundation is a very personal approach. And when I have an idea, I like to test it with a few people. By working in fashion learns to be very open, always submit ideas for discussion. I met artists who are also intellectuals, Germano Celant, the artistic director of the foundation, the architect Rem Koolhaas and the artist Thomas Demand for them to share. All were enthusiastic. I always asked questions: was it not too nostalgic? It is this fear that has convinced me that the real idea was not to show again the works and artists, now well known, but again this exhibition.
Besides nostalgia, do not you afraid very practical problems that could lead?
It is immediately apparent: many things were simply impossible to reproduce, for reasons of safety, standards, distance between the works and the public, between the works themselves, the fact that some of the value gained . And others had disappeared, how to replace them, we should accept copies. A set of questions arose. One of the more radical solutions was found by Rem Koolhaas when he realized that the Venetian palace was larger than the Kunsthalle and could therefore restore showrooms. It was a great idea, it allowed to immediately give the public a sense of time and space.
To read the rest of the interview, click here