In a moment that sees brands prizing, with increasing fervor, the elusiveness of experiences, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. What precisely is being launched, dropped, announced? What is the point of it all?
Then there is Prada Mode, the Italian fashion house's ephemeral salon-meets-discotheque event series that alights in far-flung locales across the world (Seoul, Dubai, Miami) in loose conversation with the art world's calendar. Prada Mode—most perplexingly of all—asks nothing of the well-heeled crowds that move through its artist-designed installations (from the likes of Martine Syms, Damien Hirst, Theaster Gates, Jia Zhanke, and others) and across its dancefloors. Rather, as many a fashion- and art-world insider knows, the ephemeral occasions represent an exercise in worldbuilding that conjures up surrealist dreamscapes and harkens back to nightlife's glory days.
So what better place to host an edition of Prada Mode than Luna Luna in Los Angeles? The historic amusement park installation, comprised of artist-designed carnival rides, made for the wholesome-yet-bacchanalian Luna Luna Park convened in the summer of 1987 by André Heller in Hamburg, now resides in a hangar in LA's Arts District. A carousel hand-painted by Keith Haring spins whimsically a stone's throw away from a towering Jean-Michel Basquiat Ferris Wheel and a funhouse mirror-dome courtesy of Salvador Dalí. It's a stirring, otherworldly affair—and a perfect home for Prada's latest undertaking.
The Double Club is the third installment of an ongoing project by Carsten Höller, and the original inspiration for Prada Mode. Höller is renowned for his experimental approach to immersive art experiences that alter viewers’ states of mind—a series of works he refers to as "Influential Environments." Taking the cavernous studio that once served as a staging area for the construction of Luna Luna's carnival rides as his canvas, the Belgium-born German artist experimented with the mathematical and philosophical concept of endless division: splitting the space in two using a raised platform, implementing a cacophonous array of colorful and disorienting lights on one side while preserving relative darkness on the other. "In all I do," he told audiences at the press preview on Thursday, "There is pure joy or fear, and there is reason. Everything middle, where most of us probably reside, is gone." The end result is a manifestation of these two ends of the spectrum: the installation features nine unique spaces in which guests can interact with and reflect on the dualities Höller has painstakingly cultivated.
Prada Mode's The Double Club Los Angeles opened last night with the likes of Camille Rowe, Damson Idris, Hunter Schafer, Pierce Abernathy, and St. Vincent in attendance, and was punctuated by DJ sets and live performances from Arman Naféei, Cimafunk, Craig Richards, Jojo Abot, La Goony Chonga, and Mimi Xu. Tonight marks the final evening of as-yet-unnamed performances—curated by Drake and Höller—before the installation opens to the public on Saturday, Mar. 9.
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