{"id":654,"date":"2025-11-05T15:43:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billiemuraben.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:03:31","slug":"world-of-interiors-paraventi-fondazione-prada-paraventi-plural-for-paravento-describes-an-object-that-protects-and-provides-shelter-from-the-wind-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billiemuraben.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"

World of Interiors <\/p> PARAVENTI \u2014 FONDAZIONE PRADA

\u2018Paraventi\u2019, plural for \u2018paravento\u2019, describes an object that protects, and provides shelter from the wind. A folding screen that acts as a barrier, a room divider, a facade that invites intimacy while performing to those outside of its embrace… <\/p>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2018Paraventi\u2019, plural for \u2018paravento\u2019, describes an object that protects, and provides shelter from the wind. A folding screen that acts as a barrier, a room divider, a facade that invites intimacy while performing to those outside of its embrace; through the suggestion of what it conceals and reveals, and the compositions stitched, drawn, painted and printed onto its surface.
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\n\u2018Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries\u2019, curated by Nicholas Cullinan at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, examines the object, and the questions that surround it: \u201cPainting or sculpture? Art or furniture? Utilitarian or ornamental?\u201d The exhibition presents the history of the folding screen, from its origins in China \u2014 where they were designed as objects of spiritual contemplation \u2014\u00a0their migration to Japan, through India, and into Europe. Folding screens have been understood variously as objects that can ward off malign influences, pieces of furniture that both serve a function and communicate status, props in theatre and opera, and structures upon which artists and designers can literally and figuratively project onto, enlivening the object with artistic expression.
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\nOn the ground floor of the Fondazione\u2019s Podium building, curves of transparent plexiglass and winding curtains designed by architectural firm SANAA create fluid partitions between thematic groups of folding screens, enclosing and opening up spaces, and inviting both an intimacy and expansiveness to the exhibition, where the \u2018paraventi\u2019 become the protagonists who are concealed and revealed. Defining themes are grounded in geography, the physical qualities of screens, and their position in space; organised more by mood, the conceptual possibilities of a screen, and their potential for subversion.
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\nEach area is implied by the scenography, rather than being signposted in the space, and the exhibition flows with ease across time and space, with a balance of context and order, offering up multiple views and interpretations. A pair of screens from 17th century Japan recount the final battle of the Genpei civil war in the 12th century, the ancient battle reaffirming the martial credentials of samurai families; Wu Tsang\u2019s Rebellious Bird<\/em> (2023) is projected onto a curtain, the video \u201cunfixed\u201d by the movement of fabric, the performative boundary, as Tosh Basco performs gestures inspired by 1875 opera Carmen; Carrie Mae Weems\u2019s The Apple of Adam\u2019s Eye<\/em> (1993) makes use of the biblical story as a a study of desire, power, and gender \u2014\u00a0an embroidered text on the back of the screen reading: \u201cTemptation my ass, desire has its place, and besides, they were both doomed from the start.\u201d
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\nThe Arts and Crafts Movement is represented in a screen by William Morris, Jane Morris, and manufacturer Elizabeth Burden \u2014 Screen with Embroidered Panels Depicting Lucretia, Hippolyte, and Helen<\/em> (1860-1889) \u2014\u00a0which stands between definitions, of art and furniture, utility and ornament; Goshka Macuga presents in time or space or state (2023), a folding screen as three sections of bookshelves; Mona Hatoum\u2019s Grater Divide<\/em> (2002), an oversize cheese grater, functions as both a parody and surreal, almost menacing presence. Elmgreen & Dragset\u2019s Paravent<\/em> (2008) makes use of the artists\u2019 characteristic humour and understanding of the potential of every element of a work to perform \u2014\u00a0the screen cut out with two glory holes, a roll of toilet paper hanging on the back, and two pairs of Levi\u2019s 501 jeans discarded among it. Marc-Camille Chaimowicz\u2019s Folding Screen (Five-Part)<\/em> (1979) continues the principle of performative objects, with a folding screen drawn from his flat which he designed as a \u2018total artwork\u2019, a living tableau of sculpture, painting, performance, and the decorative arts. Both screens sit within a section aptly titled \u2018World of Interiors\u2019, which addresses \u201cthe potential [for the] subversiveness of queer aesthetics to redefine\u2026 what is considered decorative\u201d, what counts as \u2018high\u2019 art, and what is considered \u201cless pure\u201d. This \u2018queering\u2019 of the object runs through the show, as the screens and scenography challenge expectations of the object and exhibition form.
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\nOn the upper floor of the Podium, the exhibition moves away from thematics and adopts a chronological presentation of \u2018paraventi\u2019. Each screen is presented on \u2018Tetris\u2019-like pedestals, in zig-zag, rectangular, and L-shape blocks, reconstructing the historical evolution of the folding screen from the 1600s to the present day. Although there is a clear chronology, the exhibition design offers views through and across time and place; presenting a clear logic, while offering the potential to move between precise eras and geographies according to your own desires.
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\nThe front rows of the upper floor presents a series of folding screens from 17th and 18th century China and Japan, in lacquered wood, gold, gilt copper mounts, and leather binds, depicting scenes from romantic novels, depictions of boats thrown off course by typhoons, and records of horses chosen by an emperor at the imperial court. The screens move through 18th and early 19th century Japan, including a nanban by\u014dbo<\/em> screen or \u2018screen of the souther barbarians\u2019, referring to the features, customs, and habits of Europeans.
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\nInterspersed among the later Japanese screens is Three-Panel Screen<\/em> (1899) by Josef Hoffmann, with gilded leather panels and an ebonized wood frame; Pablo Picasso\u2019s Paravent<\/em> (1922), painted on both sides with squares and triangles crossed through and layered into frames, and Eileen Gray\u2019s Brick Screen<\/em> (1925), made in columns of black lacquered wood \u2018bricks\u2019, joined by steel rods, which Gray described as \u201ca revolt\u201d to the taste of that time. Behind Gray\u2019s folding screen stands pieces by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, somewhat mirroring the set up between Gray\u2019s E-1027 house in the south of France, and Le Corbusier\u2019s Cabanon.
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\nFolding screens by designers Alvar Aalto, and Charles and Ray Eames, stand among pieces by Marlene Dumas, Sol Lewitt, Franz West, and Carla Accardi, moving between functions, contexts, and drives to communicate emotion, materiality, gesture, geometry, and playful challenges to the status of sculpture, beauty and utility. Among the most recent works from 2023, including Betye Saar\u2019s Snake Screen<\/em>, with serpents moving behind the panes of screen; Keiichi Tanaami\u2019s Utopian Situation by \u201cGuernica\u201d<\/em>, which features characters and themes from American pop culture and Japanese illustration; and William Kentridge\u2019s Untitled (Bread is Not Cut, Bread is Broken)<\/em>, with text layered over drawings, speaking to the wildness of nature, and the domestic dimension of the paravent. Untitled<\/em> by Laura Owens makes use of a variety of techniques, including silkscreen, oils, and acrylics on paper and silk to emphasise \u201cthe liminal aspect of the screen\u201d, and emphasise the \u201cdignity of decoration\u201d. The piece, like the exhibition itself, destabilises the authority of \u2018high art\u2019, and the single point perspective of painting, by splicing works into parts \u2014\u00a0offering up multiple viewing points, perspectives, and potentials.<\/div><\/div>
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