After showcasing its menswear collection last week in Milan, last night Prada opened its 24h Museum in Paris, designed by longtime collaborators Francesco Vezzoli and AMO, Rem Koolhaas' think tank...
Who? After showcasing its menswear collection last week in Milan, last night Prada opened its 24h Museum in Paris, designed by longtime collaborators Francesco Vezzoli and AMO, Rem Koolhaas' think tank.
What? The Museum is located in the historic Palais d'Iéna, the building designed by Auguste Perret between 1936 and 1946, today home of CESE (Conseil Economique, Social et Environnemental), the French "third Chamber". AMO's installation is divided in three sections, each inspired by a particular type of museum space: historic, contemporary and forgotten. The three sections are instrumental to the sequence of events that take place during 24 hours in different areas of the ground floor of the Palais d'Iéna. The central space is a large metal cage made from grills and neon lights that encloses the work by Vezzoli.
Why? Giving new meaning to the phrase "catch it while you can", the Museum is only open for a 24-hour period. In this "non-existent museum", Vezzoli makes a personal tribute to the eternal allure of femininity through interpretations of classical sculptures that make reference to contemporary divas. “They are my icons turned into sculptures and placed on marble pedestals", the artist explains. In this latest work, he continues his exploration of reciprocal influences and boundary-breaking in the visual arts, cinema and theatre that he has already investigated in the performance in which Veruschka did petit-point embroidery at the Venice Biennale in 2001, the Democrazy video in which Sharon Stone and Bernard-Henri Lévy represent themselves as characters of a fictitious political campaign for an hypothetical presidential election (Venice Biennale, 2007), and in Lady Gaga's performance at the MOCA in Los Angeles in 2009 when she played a live tribute to Diaghilev.
The 24h Museum opens to the public from 7am until 12 noon, and 2pm until 4pm. Guided tours take place in the afternoon, followed by a closing vernissage from 6:30 pm until 8.30 pm.
Text by Laura Bradley
