Divide and conquer: a new exhibition sheds light on the cultural history of folding screens

Fondazione Prada’s latest exhibition, ‘Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries’ (until 22 February 2024) examines the cultural and artistic role of the decorative folding screen, an otherwise unstudied – and according to the show, occasionally maligned – object. ‘We don’t really know if they're functional or decorative,’ says curator Nicholas Cullinan. ‘Do we think of them more as painting or sculpture? Are they high? Are they low? They occupy this very liminal space.’

‘Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries’ at Fondazione Prada, Milan

The exhibition charts the evolution of standing screens, known as paraventi in Italian, from their roots in Asia to the object’s current role in contemporary art. The latter culminating in 18 original commissions, which includes new work by Anthea Hamilton, Betye Saar, Joan Jonas and Carrie Mae Weems.

Set over the Podium gallery’s two floors, each level follows its own curatorial logic. ’When you enter, you have an open labyrinth containing seven different themes that flow into one another,’ explains Cullinan of the exhibition design, entrusted to Tokyo-based Pritzker prize-winning firm SANAA. They laid out the ground floor in thematic groupings loosely delineated by fluttering curtains and curving plexiglass walls meant to reflect a folding screen’s shape. ‘Upstairs, it’s essentially a wide open field using only chronology as a coordinate,’ says Cullinan. Here, a procession of screens by the likes of Lina Bo Bardi, Jean Prouvé, Picasso, Yves Klein, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto are placed one after the other in the football-pitch-sized room.

The first section, titled ‘Readings, East and West’, charts the origins of folding screens in Asia. ‘Starting in China and then moving on to Japan before they began to be exported,’ Cullinan explains. ‘Often through the Portuguese who [brought] them back to Europe.’

As visitors walk through the Podium doors, they are greeted with a pair of Edo-era Japanese screens made of damask silk and lacquered wood, and an 18th-century Nanban folding screen depicting Portuguese trading ships in paper and gold leaf, which he says were known as 'black ships’ for their dark-painted hulls.

Also incorporated in the opening section are several pieces by contemporary Chinese artists, including Cao Fei’s ‘Screen Autobiography (Milan),’ which was commissioned for the exhibition and is composed of a collection of electronic screens programmed with the same digitally rendered wallpaper. ‘Looking at digital devices, one thing that flags up the idea of screens,’ Cullinan says of the piece. 'It’s very relevant to all of us now because our lives are mediated or even dominated by screens.’

Moving through the ground floor, sections are dedicated to topics such as ‘Public/Private,’ ‘Split Screens,’ and ‘The World of Interiors.’ The latter, according to Cullinan, is a reference to the artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz, who, by turning his flat in London into a total work of art in the 1970s explored how the decorative is often viewed pejoratively. 

‘We have this extraordinary folding screen by Francis Bacon, which alludes to the fact that in his early career he worked as a decorator,’ he says. ‘He designed carpets and folding screens and then tried to bury this aspect of his history once he achieved success as a painter. It’s the idea of the decorative almost being shameful.’

Indeed, more than anything, the exhibition provides an illuminating look into an object that hasn’t yet been given its due. ‘In many ways,’ says Cullinan. ‘It feels like a kind of secret history that hasn't been told.’

‘Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries’ is on view at Fondazione Prada until 22 February 2024

Largo Isarco, 2
20139 Milano 

fondazioneprada.org