Exhibition “Rear Windows”: Exploring the Contradictions and the Duality of Our Present Lives

Shanghai, China – From November 2019 to 19 January 2020, Fondazione Prada is presenting the art exhibition “Rear Windows,” by the artist Li Qing, within the premises of the 1918 historical residence of Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai. Curated by the internationally renowned curator, art critic, and institutional director Jérôme Sans, “Rear Windows” is conceptualized as an immersive and site-specific installation. It is an in-depth exploration of the history and the space of Prada Rong Zhai, which creates a link between the past and the current urban environment of Shanghai. The project draws inspiration from the 1954 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, “Rear Window.”

Showcasing recent artworks by Li Qing and new commissions, “Rear Windows” will “act as climatic scenes to experience the act of seeing, of being seen or observed,” says Jérôme Sans. The project aims to analyze the contradictions and the duality of our present lives, torn between authenticity and imitation, reality, and reproduction.

Born in 1981 in Huzhou, Li Qing’s work centers around mass consumerism and society’s hypocritical and deceptive stances on beauty ideals through different painting techniques. Through video, photography, and installations, Qing explores various eternal themes or philosophical theories, such as the exhibiting of things as subject, humanity in social development, and the feelings of anxiety and fear extensively existing in our times. – GM