{"id":29484,"date":"2025-09-18T11:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T11:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/29484\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T11:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T11:11:13","slug":"alex-da-corte-exhibits-mouse-museum-in-milans-fondazione-prada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/29484\/","title":{"rendered":"alex da corte exhibits mouse museum in milan\u2019s fondazione prada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two mouse museums inside milan\u2019s fondazione prada<\/p>\n

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Inside Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada<\/a>, Alex Da Corte pays homage to Claes Oldenburg\u2019s Mouse Museum (1965-1977) through a multitude of pop culture and art objects encased in a singular, panoramic glass pane. On view from September 18th, 2025, the exhibition<\/a> and installation sit on the eighth floor of the Torre building within Fondazione Prada\u2019s lot as part of Atlas, the foundation\u2019s exhibition project presenting solo or comparative works by artists across the eight floors of the building. For the first time, visitors experience these two installations at once in the same space because the two mini museums \u2013 one by Claes Oldenburg and the other by Alex Da Corte \u2013 stand next to each other. When viewed from above, the structure housing the Swedish-born American sculptor\u2019s collection is shaped like a cartoon mouse head and an early movie camera, drawn from his drawing named Geometric House.<\/p>\n

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In Alex Da Corte\u2019s case, there\u2019s a macabre twist: his structure looks like a cut-off left ear of the mouse, a reference to the episode of Vincent van Gogh\u2019s life. Inside both of the mini museums, a collection of objects appeals to the visitors, reflecting on mass production and consumer culture as well as the ever-changing trends in pop culture. In an interview<\/a> with designboom during the preview of Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) (2022) inside Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada, Alex Da Corte tells us that he arranged the collection as a sort of self-portrait. When asked if they reflect his life, a peek into his daily practice, he shares with us: \u2018I\u2019m not interested in revealing a specific event or part of myself. I think viewers see what they see and find their own lives in the objects, whether or not they know the work\u2019s source. We project meaning onto objects because they ground us and make a safe space.\u2019<\/p>\n

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all images courtesy of Fondazione Prada | exhibition photos by Delfino Sisto Legnani \u2013 DSL Studio<\/a><\/p>\n

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Personal objects in varying color intensity for the exhibition<\/p>\n

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Alex Da Corte\u2019s Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) (2022) inside Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada mirrors the curation and artistic practice of Claes Oldenburg\u2019s Mouse Museum (1965-1977). The similarities occur in amassing and presenting mass-produced and pop-culture objects, but the saturation and shade of the objects seem shifted. It may be due to the aging of the objects, but in Claes Oldenburg\u2019s space<\/a>, the repertoire is hushed, earthy, wooden, domestic. In Alex Da Corte\u2019s room, the colors are louder, the objects are familiar and recent, and the arrangement has a comic tinge. In terms of color, the Venezuelan-American artist<\/a> explains to designboom that it is important in his practice.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Color for me is essential. Color relates to a psychological state. Colors chosen for products are meant to attract or repel. Depending on taste, you might dislike something just because of its color,\u2019 he says. \u2018When arranging things here, it\u2019s often about color; painting in space with objects. Claes also had a perfect sense for color. His objects are rich, maybe a different tonality, but similarly colorful.\u2019 Away from the shade, the technique in presenting the Mouse Museum collection inside Fondazione Prada links the artistic practice between the two artists. The order is not alphabetical, by material, or based on production year, yet in both museums, the items relate through a loosely associative sequence, relying mostly on visual similarities and suggestive connections.<\/p>\n

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exhibition view of Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) (2022) by Alex Da Corte<\/p>\n

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Alex Da Corte mirrors Claes Oldenburg\u2019s collecting practice<\/p>\n

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Playful personal objects show up in Alex Da Corte\u2019s Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) inside Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada. Among them is a Harry Potter magic wand, a Bart Simpson thermos, kitchen utensils, a plastic beer pong cup, and a foam cast of Marcel Duchamp\u2019s face. There\u2019s also the ceramic-glazed Garfield statue, a yellow rooster with a tail made of quill feathers, wearable feet gloves that resemble real skin, beer bottles, brooms, a miniature disco ball, a blasted pumpkin, and perhaps the showstopper, a zombie-looking head atop a lamp base. These peculiar objects mirror the ones inside Claes Oldenburg\u2019s Mouse Museum: a rotting slice of pie, a balloon shaped like a human leg, an enlarged cluster of bananas, a giant ceramic ear, and even a miniaturized ladder.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Looking at Claes\u2019s works today, I don\u2019t know the objects, but I\u2019m amused or reminded of something. I imagine where they came from and their function,\u2019 Alex Da Corte shares with designboom. \u2018My interest comes from thrift stores, where you find a fragment of an object and wonder about its function. Without its original purpose, it can have a new life. Seeing a second or third life for objects is exciting.\u2019 For the artist, it feels like a dream come true seeing the objects collected by Claes Oldenburg for his Mouse Museum for the first time in Fondazione Prada. \u2018I only knew them through photographs in the book, and those were in black and white. To experience the colors and textures and to see so many similarities is exciting. My interest is in hands, food, plastic, and even clay. There\u2019s humor in the work, and I see a parallel there,\u2019 he adds.<\/p>\n

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the exhibition and installation sit on the eighth floor of the Torre building within Fondazione Prada\u2019s lot<\/p>\n

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The first time Alex Da Corte came across Claes Oldenburg\u2019s works was around 25 years ago. \u2018It was in my undergraduate library. I stumbled upon the book he made with his partner to mark the presentation of the Mouse Museum. I knew Claes\u2019s work and his relationships to soft things, sculpture, and performance, but I didn\u2019t know much about contemporary art. When I saw the Mouse Museum, I was taken by all it afforded an audience and how generous it was. Only today am I seeing the real one. For 25 years, I\u2019ve been wondering about this work,\u2019 he says.The artist created his Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) in 2022 for his survey exhibition \u2018Mr. Remember,\u2019 which is on view at the Louisiana Museum in Humleb\u00e6k, Denmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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He recalls that when he was thinking about what a retrospective or a survey of his own work would look like and what it means to remember himself and the objects he had gathered over his life. \u2018The person who did that so correctly was Claes. I thought, I can\u2019t remake the whole museum; it\u2019s too sacred. So I thought, I\u2019ll cut off an ear: a little piece of me, a little piece of him,\u2019 he shares. Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear) (2022) is inside the Torre within the lot of Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada, on the eighth floor. The public viewing begins from September 18th, 2025, where viewers can also visit Sue\u00f1o Perro: Instalaci\u00f3n Celuloide by De Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, a cinematic and photographic exhibition that unveils and showcases previously hidden film materials and imagery by the Mexican filmmaker, which were preserved for 25 years in the film archives of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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among the objects are a Harry Potter magic wand and a foam cast of Marcel Duchamp\u2019s face<\/p>\n

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the technique in presenting the Mouse Museum collection links the artistic practice between the two artists<\/p>\n

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everyday objects are also on view in the installation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two mouse museums inside milan\u2019s fondazione prada \u00a0 Inside Milan\u2019s Fondazione Prada, Alex Da Corte pays homage to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[28780,442,498,499,500,501,156,3427,28781,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-29484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-interviews","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-exhibitions","16":"tag-fondazione-prada","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}