Prada presented the exhibition Mirroring: Lucio Fontana and Michelangelo Pistoletto, realised with the support of Fondazione Prada. The exhibition, which brings together 26 works, was inaugurated yesterday - 20 March - and will continue until 15 June 2025 in Shanghai in the spaces of Prada Rong Zhai, the historic 1918 residence restored by Prada and reopened in 2017; for the occasion, the curatorial vision of Sook-Kyung Lee, director of the Whitworth, has been complemented by the scientific advice of Fondazione Lucio Fontana and Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte. For the first time, Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) and Michelangelo Pistoletto, two leading figures in the Italian and international post-war art scene, are put in dialogue with each other, revealing their respective approaches to matter and the conceptual dimension of art, their exploration of alternative performance spaces and the presence of the metaphysical in their artistic practices.

Creative Exploration and Artistic Dialogue As reported in one of our previous articles, the exhibition brings together 26 works, created since the late 1940s, which emphasise the search for new forms of expression and the rejection of materials, methods and subjects perceived as paradigms of the past. The project investigates the two artists' approach to overcoming pictorial restrictions and the use of materials from the world beyond the visual arts; the three-dimensionality of their works is another central element of the exhibition, accompanied by a reflection on the performative aspect and the metaphysical dimension of their practices. Mirroring, in fact, explores the ways in which the two artists, in a complementary and at the same time partly divergent manner, overcome the two-dimensional limits of the pictorial surface.

The Works The works on display by Lucio Fontana include the following: Spatial Environment, 1949; Spatial Concept, 1949-1950; Spatial Concept. Natura 1959-1960 (1983); Concetto spaziale, 1961; Concetto spaziale. At dawn Venice was all silver, 1961; Spatial Concept. Teatrino, 1965. As for Michelangelo Pistoletto, these works are: Il presente-Uomo di schiena, 1961; Figura umana, 1962; Quadro da pranzo (Oggetti in meno 1965-1966), 1965; Metrocubo d'infinito (Oggetti in meno 1965-1966), 1966; Mappamondo (Oggetti in meno 1965- 1966), 1966-1968; Muretto di stracci, 1968; Il simbolo del Terzo Paradiso, 2003; Io-Tu-Noi, 2003-2023.

The master's comment ‘The exhibition in Shanghai is significant,’ Michelangelo Pistoletto said in an interview dedicated to the exhibition, "because it makes a point on the history of art, starting from antiquity to the Renaissance, which brings science and art towards a point that then, in turn, becomes contemporary art. Fontana allows the passage towards a new perspective that I have realised: therefore it is a fundamental landscape, it is an exhibition that gives a clear sign to what is a historical journey in art'.