Pamela Rosenkranz, “Infection”

Slight Agitation 2/4: Pamela Rosenkranz

February 9–May 14, 2017

Fondazione Prada, Milan – ITALY

Fondazione Prada presents Slight Agitation 2/4: Pamela Rosenkranz, the second iteration of a four-part project of newly commissioned, site-specific works hosted in sequence within the spatial context of the Cisterna, one of the pre-existing buildings at Fondazione Prada’s Milan venue.

Curated by the Fondazione Prada Thought Council, Slight Agitation continues with a second instalment by Pamela Rosenkranz (Switzerland, 1979). The title of the project was inspired by the poetic expression “une légère agitation,” employed by the French historian Fernand Braudel to describe the tidal movement of the Mediterranean. 

Pamela Rosenkranz’ work explores how physical and biological processes affect art. Her forthcoming installation Infection is based on a neuro-active parasite, of which an estimated 30% of the world’s population is affected. A huge, almost sublime mountain of sand is formed inside the Cisterna’s tall spaces. Its scale pressuring against the historic architecture. The sand is impregnated with fragrance of synthetic cat pheromones that activates a specific, biologically determined attraction or repulsion and subconsciously influence the public’s movement. RGB green light illuminates the peak of this chemically altered nature gently evaporating the scent.

Pamela Rosenkranz’s chapter continues the Thought Council’s interest in “agitating” the mind and body, senses and space. Rosenkranz’s intervention will be perceived at different distances, which heighten and alter the architecture of the Cisterna. The circular plan, and chemical investigation, is an oblique memory of the Cisterna’s alcohol distilling vats that were formerly housed there. The green light leaking through the Cisterna’s windows, transforms the building into a vitrine, a luminous object sensed from the outside. It will intensify as day turns to night, engaging with the Fondazione’s nocturnal character.

Viewers will have a direct, intimate experience of the sculptural intervention from a number of angles: at ground level and also from above, emphasizing the formal qualities of the Cisterna: its volume, its heaviness, its religious invocation. An uneasy feeling around biological determination will engage multiple senses: smell, heat and coldness, mass and density, light and its absence. Pamela Rosenkranz’s intervention furthers the ambitions of Slight Agitation by offering immersion into a new sensation of embodiment and collectivity.

Fondazione Prada
Largo Isarco 2, Milan – ITALY

www.fondazioneprada.org