‘I think what has made these three exhibitions so interesting and for me the most recognizable part of the polemic is that if you look at the art world today, or the world of architecture, it is almost in a corset of good intentions,’ said Koolhaas, whose metaphor stands in sharp contrast to the show’s playful frame. ‘More and more, the room to manoeuvre is extremely limited and you are almost forced to behave well. I think that by playing with antiquities, we are able in a subversive way, which is not directly in your face to comment on the current condition of art.’
To wit, one of the show’s most radical statements can be found in its final act, where viewers enter the last chamber of the Cisterna to face a full-scale reconstruction of the 4th century Colossus of Constantine. The 1:1 replica of the legendary statue – itself a rework of a previous statue of Jupiter – has been crafted from an unprecedented combination of existing fragments, exact replicas and hypothesised pieces. Swathed in golden cloth, grasping a staff and cradling an orb, the postmodern Constantine stands over 11 metres high resplendent in a figurative collage of plaster, polystyrene, chalk powder, resin and bronze. I for one felt goosebumps upon fixing the statue’s gaze, his monumental scale made all the more imposing in the enclosed space. And whilst other works will return home to their rightful homes in the hallowed halls of the Uffizi in Florence, the Galleria Borghese and the Musée du Louvre, the Colossus will find his rightful seat in the grounds of the Musei Capitolini in Rome – a future relic and a tool to reflect upon the infinite strata of meaning imbued in raw material and invoked by figurative art: forever open to new analysis and interpretation for generations to come.
Recycling Beauty is on show at Fondazione Prada, Milan, until February 27th, 2023.
Discover the exhibition catalogue designed by 2×4, New York, here.