The Tamesis
Milan-based Fondazione Prada will host a two-person exhibition by Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince at its Venice space during the upcoming Biennale.
Opening to the public on May 9, the same day as the Biennale, the exhibition is titled “Helter Skelter” and is curated by Nancy Spector, the former artistic director of the Guggenheim Museum.
According to a press release, the exhibition will be organized around “a series of thematic juxtapositions” of Prince and Jaffa’s works that will “illuminate each of their practices and tease out common themes and shared obsessions.” It will also showcase for the first time a “long creative dialogue” between the two artists that has never been publicly exhibited before.
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The two artists, who were born ten years apart, are both known for mining pop culture to create their work, and according to a press release, “exhibit a lawless spirit in appropriating and manipulating images stolen from movies, pulp novels, comic books, YouTube videos, science fiction stories, album covers, record sleeves, rock posters, first edition beat rolls, newsreels, celebrity memorabilia and social media posts.”
Prince has been a prominent artist since the 1980s, when he rose to prominence as a member of the “Picture Generation.” His best known early series was Cowboys, for which he re-photographed commercials featuring the Marlboro Man. Jaffa has only recently emerged as one of the most talked-about artists working today. An accomplished cinematographer, he first rose to prominence with his participation in the 2016 Made in Los Angeles Biennial and later with the critically acclaimed 2017 premiere of Love is the message, the message is deathwhich art news Considered to be the best piece of art of the 21st century so far.
Jaffa and Prince are no strangers to the circus of the Venice Biennale. Both have participated in the main exhibitions of the Biennale: Prince in 2003, curated by Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum, and Jafa in 2019, curated by Ralph Rugoff. For his involvement, Jaffa won the Golden Lion, the event’s top award.
In its Milan exhibition space, the Fondazione Prada will host exhibitions by Hito Steyerl, Mona Hatoum, Kali Malone and Cao Fei in conjunction with the Jafa-Prince show.
Miuccia Prada, president and founder of the foundation and one of the world’s top collectors, said in a statement: “By 2026, our institution will attempt to operate as a laboratory of ideas, an experimental platform that constantly restructures itself in response to transformations in our social and cultural landscape. Artists and intellectuals from different generations and backgrounds will push us to frame pressing issues from multiple perspectives, challenge current ideas, and think more deeply.”
