FONDAZIONE PRADA PRESENTS "ANATOMIC WAXWORKS," A PROJECT IN COLLABORATION WITH LA SPECOLA DI FIRENZE AND DIRECTOR DAVID CRONENBERG, IN MILAN FROM MARCH 24 TO JULY 17, 2023.

"Anatomic Waxworks" presents four reclining female figures, three from the Lymphatic System section and one from the Obstetrics section, nine detailed wax sculptures depicting gestation, also from the Obstetrics section and created in the Enlightenment era for educational purposes, and a series of seventy-two exhibition copies of anatomical drawings displayed in nine showcases. The Milan exhibition includes one of the most important works in the collection of the La Specola museum, the so-called Venus, a rare model with disassembling parts known for its beauty.

David Cronenberg's short film offers an alternative perspective on the four female figures, liberating them from their academic function as medical and educational tools.

His film reveals the vital and surprising dimension of the waxworks, which were previously known for their impassive and severe appearance, with the aim of generating a plurality of new emotional responses, intellectual suggestions, and intense reactions.

FOUR WOMEN NEVER LOVED, ADrift, ON A PURPOSELESS SEA, EXPERIENCE THE ECSTASY OF DISSECTION...

THE ANATOMIC WAXWORKS RECONSTRUCT A VENUS, AN ANATOMICALLY PERFECT WOMAN, THROUGH WHICH THE DIRECTOR WOULD HAVE WANTED TO OFFER A DREAMLIKE VISION.

IF BY DREAMLIKE WE MEAN A NIGHTMARE IN WHICH ONE MUST PAUSE TO BE ABLE TO ENTER INTO CONTACT WITH THE CRONENBERGIAN VISION, ALWAYS RELATED, SINCE HIS EARLY FILMS, TO THE STUDY, THE EMOTION, THE IMPACT ONE HAS WITH THE BODY, HERE THE IMPACT WITH THE BODY IS TOTAL, ABSOLUTE.

HE PLACES THESE FIGURES ON PLASTIC COTS ON THE WATER WITH THE SOUND OF SEAGULLS' CRIES.

ONE THUS WITNESSES, MORE THAN A DISSOLVING, AN UNFOLDING OF THESE BODIES THAT REVEAL THEMSELVES IN THEIR DECOMPOSITION-INTACT, THROUGH WHICH THE INTERNAL ORGANS APPEAR...

THE MESSAGE THAT COMES THROUGH, THE SCREAM THAT IT CRIES, INVOKES, THROUGH THIS REPRESENTATION IS THE VISION OF FEMALE BODIES, PRECIOUS WAX SCULPTURES PLACED ON SHABBY PLASTIC MATTRESSES, IMPUDENTLY EXPOSED TO THE GAZE, ALMOST AS IF TO SAY THAT THESE WOMEN NEVER LOVED, RESIGNED TO THIS CONDITION AS THEY WERE NEVER SEEN IN THEIR ENTIRETY AS PEOPLE, ARE THE RESULT OF THE SECTION OF THAT ACEPHALOUS PLEASURE THAT ONLY LIVES THE PART, THAT ONLY SEES A PART OF THAT BODY THAT THEREFORE IS ONLY ENJOYED BUT NEVER COMPLETELY DESIRED.

Fondazione Prada presents "Anatomic Waxworks: La Specola di Firenze | David Cronenberg" in Milan until July 17, 2023.

The project was conceived in collaboration with La Specola, part of the Museum of Natural History and the University Museum System of the University of Florence, and the Canadian director and screenwriter David Cronenberg.

"Anatomic Waxworks" represents the latest stage in a research journey through which Fondazione Prada aims to make important collections from 'guest museums' known. The goal is to offer unexpected interpretations and visions of cultural heritage, triggering a dialogue between a historical collection and a contemporary institution.

"Anatomic Waxworks" is divided into two complementary parts. One exhibition brings together thirteen eighteenth-century wax sculptures from the prestigious collection of the Florentine museum, focusing on female anatomical models and how the female body has been represented for scientific purposes. An unprecedented short film, created by David Cronenberg in the spaces of La Specola, is presented in relation to the exhibition. In this film, the director uses the most advanced digital editing techniques to introduce four of the exhibited works into an alternative dimension. Cronenberg's new work explores elements and recurring themes in his creative vision, particularly the fascination with the human body and its potential mutations and contaminations.

The project, therefore, takes on a dual intervention: the scientific narration and the artistic one take shape in two independent installations created by the creative agency Random Studio.

On the first floor of the Podium, Fondazione Prada's main exhibition space, the wax sculptures from La Specola are displayed following a rigorous museum approach. On the ground floor, the same works access the director's imagination, becoming the protagonists of an enigmatic process of metamorphosis.

As David Cronenberg explains: "The wax figures of La Specola were created first and foremost as a didactic tool, capable of revealing the mysteries of the human body to those who could not attend the rare anatomical lessons with real cadavers held in universities and hospitals. In their attempt to create partially dissected whole figures, whose body language and facial expressions did not show suffering or agony and did not suggest the idea of torture, punishment, or surgical procedures, the sculptors ended up producing seemingly overwhelmed living characters. It was this surprising stylistic choice that captured my imagination: what if it was the dissection itself that induced that tension, that almost religious rapture?"

As Miuccia Prada, President of Fondazione Prada, underlines: "The museum and the artist offer complementary visions to the public. The result is at the same time an art exhibition, an anatomy lesson, a video about desire, and an educational experimentation operation through which we intend to narrate the value of a collection and its history, reveal the contribution of creative thought to knowledge, and promote interest in scientific studies."

"Anatomic Waxworks" represents a further opportunity for Fondazione Prada to investigate scientific knowledge by placing it in a broader cultural framework, following the multidisciplinary project "Human Brains" dedicated to the foundations and new developments in neuroscience. At the same time, it provides an in-depth exploration of the theme of physicality following the exhibition "Useless Bodies?" by Elmgreen & Dragset, which investigated the role and value of the body in contemporary society.

Created in 1775 and currently closed to the public for renovation work on its historic headquarters, La Specola is one of the oldest scientific museums in Europe. It houses over 3.5 million animal specimens, the world's largest collection of eighteenth-century anatomical waxworks, and the collection of the Sicilian wax sculptor Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656-1701). 1,400 elements of the extraordinary collection of anatomical waxworks were created between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to produce a true didactic-scientific treatise that, without the need for direct observation of a cadaver, aimed to illustrate the anatomy of the human body.

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