Prada presents “A Moon Wrapped in Brown Paper”, an exhibition by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, with the support of Fondazione Prada. Curated by Yang Beichen, the project will be on view from 11 November 2021 to 9 January 2022 at Prada Rong Zhai, a 1918 historic residence in Shanghai restored by Prada and reopened in October 2017.
The exhibition “A Moon Wrapped in Brown Paper” will be open to the public from 11 November 2021 to 9 January 2022
PRADA RONG ZHAI No. 186 North Shaan Xi Road
Jing’an District, Shanghai
Since 2004 Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg have worked closely together as an artistic duo. Through videos, animations, installations and sculptural works they create transgressive narratives suspended between the grotesque and the dramatic and evoke scenarios charged with emotional tension. Their practice plumbs the depths of human desires and animal instincts enacting myths, legends and nightmarish visions.
“A Moon Wrapped in Brown Paper” —which title pays homage to Valentine, a poem by British author Carol Ann Duffy— brings together a selection of sculptures and videos realized from 2000 to 2019. An organic carpet connecting the rooms of Prada Rong Zhai’s ground floor and a multi-layered labyrinth, both created by Djurberg and Berg, allow visitors to dive into their dreamlike and disturbing universe. The exhibition is conceived as a smooth landscape in which each of their works creates a narrative micro-universe populated by fairy tale characters, animals, post-humans and strange creatures.
As underlined by curator and critic Yang Beichen, “the world in Djurberg and Berg’s work is ruled by monsters. It is a carnival-like dimension, with a frenetic rhythm, in which the viewer is confronted with challenging images and narratives without really feeling alienated. The parallel world of this dark fairy tale is filled with deviant animals, demons of various shapes and forms, and repulsive human beings, the abnormal beings that connect many contemporary issues: from the fluidity of gender to the multiplicity of identities, from the capitalization of desire to the omnipresence of physical and emotional violence”.
Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg currently live and work in Alingsas and Stockholm, Sweden. Born in Lysekil, Sweden in 1978, Nathalie Djurberg received her MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden in 2002. Hans Berg was born in Rättvik, Sweden in 1978 and is a musician, producer and composer, working mainly with electronic music. They have exhibited widely together in solo exhibitions and group shows, including the 53rd Venice Biennale, Italy in 2009, and their work is featured in a number of collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA.
Gallery: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Flower Fly, 2012 Courtesy the artists; Giò Marconi, Milan
Photo: Filippo Armellin; Waterfall Variation (Marimba and Strings), 2015; Dark Side of the Moon, 2017 Courtesy the artists; Tanya Bonakdar, New York/Los Angeles; Gió Marconi, Milan; Lisson Gallery, London. Alles ist Gut, 2008 Collezione Prada, Milano
Portrait of Hans Berg and Nathalie Djurberg, Ph Wynrich Zlomke
