Recycling Beauty

Exhibition view of Recycling Beauty, Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo Roberto Marossi, courtesy Fondazione Prada

“Recycling Beauty” is dedicated to the reuse of Greek and Roman antiquities in post-antique contexts, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque era. The exhibition is curated by Salvatore Settis and Anna Anguissola with Denise La Monica, designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA.

The underlying premise of the research behind the exhibition is the need to think of the classical not simply as a legacy of the past, but also as a vital element with the power to affect our present and future.
Through an innovative interpretive approach and an experimental exhibition format, ancient heritage—in particular Greco-Roman heritage—becomes, in Settis’ words, “a key that provides access to the multiplicity of cultures in the contemporary world.” Highlighting the importance of fragments, reuse, and interpretation, “Recycling Beauty” helps to consider the past as an unstable phenomenon in constant evolution. The exhibition presents over fifty highly representative artworks from international and Italian public collections and museums, including Musée du Louvre in Paris, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Musei Capitolini, Musei Vaticani, and Galleria Borghese in Rome, GalleriE degli Uffizi in Florence, and Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.