“Slight Agitation, a four-part project of newly commissioned, site-specific works hosted in sequence within the Cisterna in the Milan venue of Fondazione, including works by Tobias Putrih (Slovenia, 1972), Pamela Rosenkranz (Switzerland, 1979) and Austrian collective Gelitin, continues with a final installment by Brazilian artist Laura Lima.

Lima presents Horse Takes King, following Putrih’s installation which engaged with ideas of play, politics and emancipation; Rosenkranz’s intervention that offered visitors a multisensory immersion into a new perception of embodiment and collectivity; and Gelitin showcasing a project explicitly addressing classical architectural archetypes and subverting their rhetoric and monumental components. Lima’s work is a whimsical attempt to distort the senses that determine our perception through three large sculptures, displayed in the spaces of the Cisterna, each contributing to the formulation of an apparently absurd taxonomy.

The title of her intervention clearly hints at a chess game, which ultimately creates an illusory space where spectators are invited to move freely, without knowing the broader context that would enable them to understand the artist’s impulse. The works on display, Bird (2016), Pendulum (2018) and Telescope (2018), invite viewers to elaborate what in astronomical terms is described as a ‘syzygy’, traditionally intended as a straight-line configuration of three or morecelestial bodies in a gravitational system. In this case, the connections between displayed elements cannot be reconducted to one univocal definition. The environment Horse Takes Kings prompts is in fact a situational one, in which the three sculptures realized by the artist stand for different roles within a game: the bird stands for the horse, the class is a space for collective enquiry and lastly the pendulum represents the game’s challenge. The King, an imaginary central figure at play, remains an immaterial presence, representing an all-ecompassing power and the main antagonist.” — Fondazione Prada

Laura Lima, Doped (Man=flesh / Woman=flesh), 1996. Photo Eduardo Eckenfels. Collection Instituto Inhotim

Laura Lima, Costumes, 2002. Photo Laura Lima studio. Collection of the artist

Laura Lima, Pheasants with food, 2005. Photo Paulo Innocêncio. Collection of the artist

Laura Lima, Novos Costumes, 2007. Photo Ana Torres. Collection Instituto Inhotim

Laura Lima, Naked Magician, 2010. Photo Sergio Araujo. Collection of the artist

Laura Lima, The Inverse, 2016. Photo Fredrik Nilsen. Studio Collection of the artist

Laura Lima, Bird, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Exhibition view of Slight Agitation 4/4: Laura Lima. Photo Mattia Balsamini

Laura Lima, Pendulum, 2018. Steel, engine, painting. Courtesy the artist. The painting included in the work of art Pendulum is a copy of: Salvador Dalí, Pescador al Sol, 1928 © Salvador Dalì, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation by SIAE 2018. Exhibition view of Slight Agitation 4/4: Laura Lima. Photo Mattia Balsamini

Slight Agitation 4/4: Laura Lima, curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, is the fourth and last chapter of the exhibition project conceived by Fondazione Prada Thought Council, whose current members are Shumon Basar, Elvira Dyangani Ose, and Dieter Roelstraete.

Images courtesy Fondazione Prada.