Fondazione Prada presents « Cere anatomiche: La Specola di Firenze | David Cronenberg » at its Milan venue from March 24th to July 17th, 2023. The project is conceived in collaboration with La Specola, which is part of the Museum of Natural History and Museum System of the University of Florence, and the film director and screenwriter David Cronenberg.

This project is developed in two complementary parts. An exhibition in which there will be present thirteen ceroplastic works dating from the eighteenth-century, part of the Florentine museum’s collection, which focuses on female wax models and the way women’s bodies have been used and represented for scientific and research purposes. A short film, shot by David Cronenberg at La Specola, will be shown in order to create a dialogue with the exhibition. In this film, the director focuses on four works on view, which are shown with an alternative narrative. On the upper floor of the Podium, the main floor of the Fondazione, the La Specola waxes will be shown with a scientific and explanatory approach, while in contrast on the lower floor Cronenberg’s film will be shown; thus creating a reflection on what one has just physically seen and how, instead, the director perceives and analyzes the waxes, which inevitably undergo a metamorphosis.
This project is an art exhibition, but at the same time also an anatomy lesson, a video about desire and an educational experiment. In this way, Fondazione Prada continues its research on science and corporality after the « Human Brains » and « Useless Bodies? » projects. 

La Specola was created in 1775 and is one of the oldest science museums in Europe. It contains over 3.5 million animals, the world’s most extensive collection of eighteenth-century anatomical waxes; 1,400 pieces of the extraordinary collection of anatomical waxworks were made between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to obtain an actual educational-scientific treatise.

On the occasion of this project, Fondazione Prada will publish an extensive and illustrated volume designed by Irma Boom with contributions from various experts and guests who will examine the extraordinary heritage and resources of La Specola’s collection from historical, academic, and artistic perspectives and investigate David Cronenberg’s vision of the body.

Discover more at Fondazioneprada.org
@Fondazioneprada

Clemente Susini and Giuseppe Ferrini
Ceroplastic workshop of the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History “Venus”, recumbent female statue
1782
Decomposable polychrome wax model
Anatomical wax collection, Obstetrics Room, case no. 968
“La Specola” Museum, Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence
SMA, Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze, ph. Saulo Bambi

Clemente Susini and Giuseppe Ferrini
Ceroplastic workshop of the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History “Venus”, recumbent female statue
1782
Decomposable polychrome wax model
Anatomical wax collection, Obstetrics Room, case no. 968
“La Specola” Museum, Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence
SMA, Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze, ph. Saulo Bambi

Ceroplastic workshop of the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History Recumbent female statue showing the distribution of the lymphatic vessels
Late 18th century
Polychrome wax model
Anatomical wax collection, Room XXIX, case no. 745
“La Specola” Museum, Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence SMA, Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze, ph. Saulo Bambiù

Backstage image from the shooting of David Cronenberg’s film Museo La Specola di Firenze
Photo: Flavio Pescatori
Courtesy Fondazione Prada