Recto Verso at the Fondazione Prada: a semipolitical reading

In a post-Expo and fashion-oriented city such as Milan setting up an exhibition which questions the B-side of two dimensional art seems to be a conscious political message, more than just a link between artists who have explored this creative area. And even if “Recto Verso”, from today until 14 February at the Fondazione Prada, has been presented as the first show conceived by Fondazione’ so-called Thought Council – that is basically a group of external curators who collaborate with the Fondazione’s curatorial staff, – it strongly recalls what, according to rumours, Miuccia Prada in person stated a few months ago, in occasion of the opening of the new innovative venue that hosts Miuccia and her husband’s art institution: “it should be regarded as a sort of political gesture” she declared.

 

Mrs. Prada turned 20 in 1969, when also in Milan an extraordinary season for the arts began, perhaps the only real golden age of the XX century. At that time Michelangelo Pistoletto was 36, Alberto Burri was 54, and Gastone Novelli, who wrote “La Biennale è fascista” behind a canvas he painted in 1968 in occasion of his solo exhibition at that crucial edition of the Venice Biennale, had already passed away, at only 43. Now this incendiary work has come back to a main exhibition room, along with other back side inspired pieces by politically aware artists such as Pistoletto and Burri, but also Carla Accardi and Giulio Paolini. Through them the Nazi Ministry of Finance’s logo that can be spotted on the verso of one of the two XVI century portraits photographed by Swedish artist Mattis Leiderstam may be more than an innocent allusion to a very sad passage in our history.

 

“During my staying in London and Berlin I’ve met many Italian people living out of their country apparently because they were feeling unconformable with the social and political context” says Shumon Basar, one of the four members of the Fondazione Prada’s Thought Council, who continues: “nevertheless I’ve made many interesting discoveries here in Milan, especially in regards with post-war art, which is of an extraordinary quality here”. Despite the atmosphere has been changing in town since the opening of the Expo, and the art community is slowly recovering from the bad moment it went through, Basar agrees that Milanese art scene is still not as international as that of Berlin, London, or Brussels. It follows that the city is still not able to attract artists, curators or galleries from all over the world in the way that other cities do, especially Berlin, despite low renting and the quality of its artistic background.

 

Of course this it is not the B-side the exhibition deals with or, better, not the only one. The stimulating pieces by Roy Liechtenstein, Thomas Demand, Gerard Byrne and Luca Bertolo also on display would firmly disagree with a too narrow interpretation. But if you still want to follow this path, take some minutes to read the free thoughts handwritten by Pistoletto himself on the stretcher of the wide canvas closing the exhibition. The monumental piece from 1970 is titled “Un libro, il lato letterario del quadro” (A book, the literary side of a painting). It belongs to Cittadellarte, the non profit foundation Pistoletto set in 1998 near Biella to “inspire and produce a responsible change in society through ideas and creative projects”. The first writing from the left says: “Don’t wear glasses until you get blind and when you get blind you will not need them anymore”.

December 3, 2015