LIBRO

Recycling beauty: [exhibition, Fondazione Prada, Milan, November 17, 2022-February 27, 2023]

di Salvatore Settis

Recycling Beauty? is an unprecedented study dedicated entirely to the reuse of Greek and Roman antiquities in post-antique contexts, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque era. The exhibition is curated by Salvatore Settis and Anna Anguissola with Denise La Monica, designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA.00The underlying premise of this research is the need to think of the classical not simply as a legacy of the past, but also as a vital element with the power to affect our present and future.0Through an innovative interpretive approach and an experimental exhibition format, ancient heritage?in particular Greco-Roman heritage?becomes, in Settis? words, ?a key that provides access to the multiplicity of cultures in the contemporary world.?0Despite its cultural relevance and widespread diffusion, the reuse of ancient materials has been studied in depth only recently. In the last few years detailed attention has been devoted to the essential aspect of this phenomenon: the visual and conceptual interaction between the reused ancient elements and the post-Antique context, far from their origin, they became part of. ?Recycling Beauty,? instead, aims to draw attention to the moment when an antique artifact crosses the boundary between its condition of abandonment among ruins and the moment its value is reactivated through its reuse. 00Exhibition: Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (17.11.2022 - 27.02.2023).