Fondazione Prada

There are a variety of brilliant shows the Foundazione Prada in Milan, itself an architectural marvel of mixed materials and light. One is a Godard studio recreation.

“Le Studio d’Orphée” is a recreated editing studio—living and working place of Jean-Luc Godard (1930 – 2022). Godard gave the Fondazione his books, paintings and other personal items from his studio-house in Rolle in Switzerland—even his tennis racquet. Of Orpheus, Godard says: “I, too, had believed for a moment that the cinema authorized Orpheus to look back without causing Euridyce’s death. I was wrong. Orpheus will have to pay.”

Fondazione Prada is also showing a retrospective of Italian artist Pino Pascali, focusing on his sculpture. Mark Godfrey writes in his exhibition catalog essay: “Pascali explored the relationship of sculpture and stage props, and contrasted sculpture with functional objects. Works that looked from a distance like readymades revealed themselves close-up to be constructed from found materials. Pascali thought about what a ‘fake’ or ‘feigned’ sculpture could be. He titled pieces as if they were solid masses, winking to his audiences who knew they were empty volumes.

Godfrey writes that Pascali “used the natural elements of earth and water alongside construction materials like Eternit fiber cement panels and divided his seas and fields into units with repeated measurements. Pascali brought new consumer products and synthetic fabrics to the studio to fashion animals, traps, and bridges. He remains important today for his role as an “‘exhibitionist’[—]Pascali recognized that the postwar artist had to devote as much of their energies to exhibition-making as to refining their work in the studio.”

Enjoy our photo journal below, with more information available at Fondazione Prada.