Among all the pieces of furniture surpassed by our small living rooms, few represent the most useless of the past as well as the screen.
And, at the same time, few pieces of furniture contain so much information about our history, our customs and our aesthetic and even lubricious drives.
The screen is a fossil of bourgeois decoration that, paradoxically or precisely for this reason, has proven irresistible to many artists.
As an object, it is already ambiguous: “It is decorative, functional, architectural and theatrical,” explains by telephone Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery in London and curator of the exhibition
Paraventi
(screens), which can be seen until February 22. at the Fondazione Prada in Milan.
It is a spectacular setup: on the ground floor, a labyrinth of sinuous plexiglass screens, designed by the Korean architecture studio SANAA, takes the viewer along a path of “curatorial essays” – ancient Chinese screens, commissions by contemporary artists and rarities of author-.
On the upper floor there are only screens, one after the other, arranged chronologically: a kind of walk of fame with the signatures of Miró, Hockney or Le Corbusier.
'Coromandel' screen from the late 18th century. Carlos Azevedo
In addition to big names there are great stories, like that of the screen of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton, who during the sixties were a couple and shared a tiny apartment lined with clippings from books and magazines in the London neighborhood of Islington (both spent time in jail for using public library books for his collages).
Orton began to have success as a playwright, which provoked the jealousy of Halliwell, who ended up murdering his partner with a hammer and then died of an overdose in August 1967. The screen in the exhibition, wallpapered with clippings, is an example of the narrative density of some of the pieces in the exhibition.
Screen 'Cat', by Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton (1966).
In an art world permanently inflamed by market forces, and where any format, including the canvas, is questionable and instantly gentrifiable, the screen is almost oppositional because it is difficult to classify.
In this sense, the hybrid and the multidisciplinary are two aspects that are part of the character of the designer Miuccia Prada, president of the Milanese foundation.
“Ms. Prada likes to reflect on concepts, objects or ideas that don't fit into a single category,” Cullinan notes.
“Coming from the world of fashion, but obviously being very interested in art, I think what interests her most is questioning stereotypes and hierarchies.
And screens have never been taken very seriously.”
Paraventi
goes far beyond the screen as a piece of history, art or decoration.
“I don't think there has ever been an exhibition on this scale before, from its origins in Asia to the 18 pieces we have commissioned from contemporary artists.
And I think it is because, as an element, the screen is usually thought of in a somewhat pejorative way: it is a piece of furniture, it does not measure up to be art.
It's something cheesy, effeminate, like good taste,” explains the curator.
“Luckily, the notion of an artist is expanding and when we talk about art we no longer just think of a heterosexual man with a paintbrush,” Cullinan emphasizes.
'Paravent (byobu)', from 18th century Japan.Georg Mayer
Screens were born in China about two thousand years ago, initially as paper screens to protect from wind, rain, spirits and, of course, other people's eyes.
The fixed screens became mobile, foldable and, inside, they gained in representative function: to prevent the rapid deterioration of paper and silk, richly decorated lacquered wood screens emerged.
Towards the 17th century, they were placed behind personalities to emphasize their rank.
By then, the screen had already spread to Korea and Japan and, from Asia, to the entire world: the Chinese lacquered screens were called
coromandel
after the port where they were loaded towards Europe.
The first Japanese screen – called
byombu
– arrived in Madrid in 1585: it was a gift for Philip II.
Later, they came through Mexico, where a thriving craft industry flourished in Japanese-style screens, now decorated with Western scenes.
'Brick' screen, by Eileen Gray (1925).
“We didn't want this exhibition to be a story of appropriation,” explains Cullinan.
“That is why we wanted the artists and architects that we embarked on this project to be international, and that is why, in addition to Milan,
Paraventi
has two other locations in Tokyo and Shanghai, where it was inaugurated simultaneously.
They are cities from which many of the examples on display come.”
Paraventi
is an example of how cultural institutions face their decolonization, an issue that has been so controversial lately in Spain.
“Everything is so politicized lately!
The same thing has happened to us in England, especially since Brexit.
It is a debate that I live with at the National Portrait Gallery.
We addressed it when we reopened the museum, and it worked very well among very different audiences.”
Cullinan is responsible for the National Portrait Gallery opening itself to contemporary discourse: making non-white stories and the colonial past visible from a not only British point of view, and not as quotas but with relevant works.
Last year he prompted the purchase of
Portrait of Mai
, a magnificent portrait of the first Polynesian to visit England, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1776. The NPT paid for it halfway with the Getty Museum, meaning Mai divides his time between London and Los Angeles.
“It's nice to think that, here, she lives right in front of the place where it was painted.
And there, facing the Pacific, where she was born,” Cullinan told
The New Yorker
.
The commissioner is not interested in controversy.
“I think things have to be done with sincerity, but also with tact and not as some kind of grandiose moral lesson or something overtly didactic.
Do things discreetly and allow people to approach on their own, let the public reflect,” he says.
Working with layers of meaning without the important thing—what is exposed—losing prominence, seems to be his specialty.
This is possibly the best quality of
Paraventi
, and why this exhibition fits perfectly in an institution as particular as the Fondazione Prada, a pioneer in proposing contemporary readings of the history of art: copies of sculptures from the classical world, an exhibition curated by the filmmaker Wes Anderson or the theatrical installation of anatomical waxes from the 18th century are some recent milestones.
“The foundation has a very sophisticated, but also very attractive, program that makes people want to go see it,” explains Cullinan.
“I remember, years ago, when we were working on the opening, Mrs. Prada said to me, 'You know?
I've always wondered why banal things are supposed to be more attractive, and things that are more refined and difficult, less so.
What I have intended all my life with my designs and with my art collection is to make the intelligent attractive.”
'Folding Screen FSW 8', by Charles and Ray Eames (1948).Roberto Marossi
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