MILAN.- Galerie Eva Presenhuber is highlighting the installation Suddenly This Overview (1981-2012) by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli David Weiss at Fondazione Prada in Milan. It is permanently on view since November 29, 2023, as part of the foundation's exhibition project Atlas.

This work’s version combines 157 medium- and small-scale raw clay sculptures arranged on plinths of different heights, representing the world through a seemingly arbitrary selection of events, objects, phrases, and historical or invented notions. With a predilection for phenomenological collecting and arraying the wonders of the world, Peter Fischli David Weiss conceived Suddenly This Overview as a subjective encyclopaedia, in which the seemingly rational project of gathering all the world’s knowledge would be undercut by the imperfections of individual memory and personal choice. The artists first exhibited the clay figures at Galerie Pablo Stähli in Zürich in 1981, and subsequently continued to produce sculptures for the installation, re-creating earlier works from memory and adding new scenes to the series, many of which wittily referred to later works in their oeuvre.

“Atlas” is an exhibition project presenting a repertoire of works by contemporary artists, encouraging a direct confrontation and an unmediated experience with the visual arts. It is a reflection not only on the history of Fondazione Prada, characterized by environmental experimentation and in-depth historical and thematic research but also on the use of the space that hosts it, Torre.

“Atlas” is a project designed to change over time, one floor at a time, part of a process that is never finished but ready to incorporate new stimuli and interpretations. Its unstable nature becomes a paradigm for investigating how to programme an exhibition space and the meaning of a permanent display in a place dedicated to contemporary culture.

From 29 November 2023, the fifth floor is renovated with the Fischli/Weiss work Suddenly This Overview (1981- 2012). The installation, conceived as a subjective encyclopaedia, gathers a series of clay sculptures created by the two artists from 1981 to 2012.

“Atlas” hosts installations, paintings, tapestries and sculptures in a sequence of environments incorporating solos and confrontations, created through assonances or contrasts, between artists such as Carla Accardi (Italy, 1924-2014) and Jeff Koons (United States, 1955), Walter De Maria (United States, 1935-2013), Goshka Macuga (Poland, 1967) and Betye Saar (United States, 1926), Fischli/Weiss (Svizzera, 1952/1946), William N. Copley (United States, 1919-1996) and Damien Hirst (United Kingdom, 1965), John Baldessari (United States, 1931-2020) and Carsten Höller (Belgium, 1961).

The group of exhibited artworks, realized between 1960 and 2016, represents a possible mapping of the ideas and visions that have guided the collaborations with the artists contributing to Fondazione’s activities throughout the years. “Atlas”, therefore, traces an evolving path between the personal and the institutional, open to temporary and thematic interventions, special projects and events, with possible integrations from other institutions.

Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy
Atlas
Permanently on view since November 29, 2023