Designed to allow the visitor to wander through and organically explore the surreal world created in claymation, sculpture and music, A Moon Wrapped in Brown Paper is an inviting and dynamic exhibition in the beautiful Prada Rong Zhai building in Shanghai, on view until January 9. Curated by film scholar Yang Beichen, member of the Thought Council at the Fondazione Prada, the exhibition offers a unique experience, blurring the lines between mediums, reflecting the artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg’s creative relationship and process.
The exhibition’s name, a homage to Valentine by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, reflects the surprising beauty found when looking deeper into their evocative Claymation styles, as the poem refers to the romance and beauty of an onion and the dynamic layers to be found when looking with a new perspective. A wander through the beautiful, historic residence of the Prada Rong Zhai filled with powerful sculpture, film, and lights gives the visitor an Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole experience, disconnected from the outside world but with recognisable nods all around you.
The works on show were created between 2000 and 2019, and so in every sense the exhibition is a journey, through the artists’ work over almost a decade, and through the immersive, fairy-tale world created by the art itself. Within this world, the visitor is invited to allow their preconceptions to melt away as they absorb the subverted stories told by these dynamic works, encouraging reconsideration of the binaries between antagonist and protagonist both within the scenes as they unfold, and outside in our own complex world.
The works on show were created between 2000 and 2019, and so in every sense the exhibition is a journey, through the artists’ work over almost a decade, and through the immersive, fairy-tale world created by the art itself. Within this world, the visitor is invited to allow their preconceptions to melt away as they absorb the subverted stories told by these dynamic works, encouraging reconsideration of the binaries between antagonist and protagonist both within the scenes as they unfold, and outside in our own complex world.
A Moon Wrapped in Brown Paper is now on view at the Prada Rong Zhai building in Shanghai until January 9.
