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UNTIL 26 DEC: “THE GIACOMETTI VARIATIONS” BY JOHN BALDESSARI AT THE PRADA FOUNDATION, MILAN
“THE GIACOMETTI VARIATIONS” is an original project of John Baldessari, curated by Germano Celant, featured at its space in Milan, until December 26.
The installation is specifically conceived for the exhibition spaces of the Prada Foundation and consists of nine sculptures made of resin and steel and sprayed with bronze, each 4.5 meters tall. Inspired by the imagery of the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, the huge, oversized female figures take the slender, emaciated character of their bodies to an extreme: a vision of a monumental mannequin. Every figure is dressed in garments and objects designed by Baldessari himself. Their look is inspired by archetypes whose origins lie in the imagery fostered by the interrelationship between film and fashion, as well as by the fanciful interaction between art-world novelty and the continual updating of the messages conveyed in advertising and commerce. They range from the hot-pink bow in duchess satin—an ironic revisiting of the 1950s Hollywood glamour of Marilyn Monroe—to Rapunzel’s long blond tresses; from the burning pyre of St. Joan of Arc to Dorothy’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz; from the nineteenth- century crinoline of “Gone with the Wind” to Humphrey Bogart’s trench coat in “Casablanca.”
At the same time the artist takes into account the rapidity with which images and trends in dress and fashion are consumed, and this process is reflected, as the show unfolds, in the changes of décor for the statues.
Eighteen different overall looks are thus born and presented in rotation: from October 29 to November 15; from November 16 to December 6; and from December 7 to December 26. Through this process of transformation John Baldessari reminds us, as it were, of the dizzying speed of consumption and obsolescence affecting the fetishes of body aesthetics, objects as well as clothes, and underscores the linguistic exchange between art and fashion. It is an osmosis in which everything becomes indistinguishable, as it is thrust into the vortex of novelty, which the monumentality of art history may, perhaps, survive.
“THE GIACOMETTI VARIATIONS” BY JOHN BALDESSARI
PRADA FOUNDATION
Until December 26
Via Fogazzaro 36, Milan
By Paulo Meixedo
