Watch Postwar Italy’s Avant-garde Revolt Unfold in Slashes, Steel, and Shattered Perspectives at “Mirroring” Exhibition
March 25, 2025- “Mirroring: Lucio Fontana and Michelangelo Pistoletto” Exhibition at Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, China
Prada Rong Zhai, a 1918 Shanghai mansion restored to gilded perfection, is now the stage for a quiet rebellion. From March 20 to June 15, Mirroring pits Lucio Fontana’s violent elegance against Michelangelo Pistoletto’s sly reflections—26 works that refused to behave like art.
Here’s the provocation: What if a painting wasn’t a window, but a door? Fontana answered with a blade. His Spatial Concept series (1949–61)—gashes in monochrome canvases, edges raw like wounds—didn’t depict depth. They were depth. Nearby, Pistoletto’s Mirror Paintings (1961– ) turn viewers into intruders, their faces caught in the glass behind painted figures. The effect is sly, subversive: You’re not looking at art. You’re in it.
The Cut and The Reflection
Fontana’s Spatial Concept, Nature (1959–60) isn’t a sculpture. It’s a bronze tumor, rupturing from the wall. Pistoletto’s Man Seen from Behind (1961) isn’t a portrait. It’s a trap—your reflection forced into communion with the artist’s painted back.
Curator Sook-Kyung Lee orchestrates their dialogue like a physicist colliding particles. In one room, Fontana’s Little Theatre (1965)—a neon-lit maquette of a stage—faces Pistoletto’s Wall of Rags (1968), where fabric spills like time unraveling. Both artists weaponized dimension: Fontana by violating surfaces, Pistoletto by multiplying them.
Why Shanghai? Why Now?
“This exhibition takes stock of art’s history,” Pistoletto muses. Indeed, Mirroring feels like a secret handshake between postwar Italy and today’s digital fragmentation. Fontana’s slashes predate pixelated screens; Pistoletto’s mirrors anticipate selfie culture.
In the mansion’s opulent halls, their works hum with quiet audacity. A Cubic Meter of Infinity (1966) by Pistoletto—a mirrored cube containing nothing, yet swallowing everything—sits steps from Fontana’s Venice Was All Silver (1961), where punctured foil mimics celestial decay. The message? Art isn’t made. It’s unleashed.
Practical Magic
🖼️ Exhibition: Mirroring: Lucio Fontana & Michelangelo Pistoletto
📍 Where: Prada Rong Zhai, 186 North Shaanxi Road
📅 When: March 20–June 15 (closed Mondays), 10 AM–6 PM
🎟️ Tickets: Free (book via WeChat: Prada荣宅)
Walk through the lacquered doors. Stand before the cuts. Catch your face in the glass. And ask: Which side of the canvas are you on?
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