Miranda July: New Society

Fondazione Prada presents Miranda July: New Society, the first solo museum exhibition of Miranda July’s work from March 7 to October 14, 2024 (press preview on March 6, 2024) at the Osservatorio, located at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. 

Curated by Mia Locks, Miranda July: New Society spans three decades, from the early 1990s until today, including short film, performance, and installation works by American artist, filmmaker and writer Miranda July. The exhibition debuts a new work called F.A.M.I.L.Y. (Falling Apart Meanwhile I Love You), a multi-channel video installation featuring July’s yearlong collaboration with seven other performers via Instagram. The exhibition uses F.A.M.I.L.Y. as a jumping off point to consider related ideas from July’s other performative and collaborative works.  

“July’s work examines a range of human relationships and forms of intimacy,” says Locks. “Her questioning of established hierarchies and normative power dynamics is a distinctly feminist position that spans across the various media she has used in her career.” The exhibition, accompanied by a retrospective of July’s film work at Cinema Godard in Fondazione Prada, offers a unique opportunity to experience the artist’s wide-ranging oeuvre.

“I’m so honored and excited to not only share my newest work at the Fondazione Prada, but that it will be contextualized by past work from the last three decades,” remarks July. “That the museum is exhibiting my artworks at the Osservatorio and my films at Cinema Godard demonstrates a rare and special commitment to multiplicity.”

The first level of Osservatorio presents documentation from July’s earliest performances in punk clubs to major performance pieces, such as Love Diamond (1998–2000), The Swan Tool (2000–2003), Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going to Talk About (2006–2007), and New Society (2015), alongside related props, costumes and archival documents. 

The second level presents F.A.M.I.L.Y. , as well as two other collaborative projects—I’m the President, Baby (2018) and Services (2020). There will also be a reprisal of Learning to Love You More (2000-2007), a web-based project made in collaboration with Harrell Fletcher that included 70 assignments completed by the public and uploaded to the site. Assignment #43 (“Make an exhibition of the art in your parents’ home”) will appear as part of the exhibition, completed by a local Milanese woman specifically for the exhibition.

Miranda July: New Society is accompanied by the first complete retrospective of July’s filmography, which will take place at Fondazione Prada’s Cinema Godard concurrently with the show. The program includes three feature films, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), The Future (2011), and Kajillionaire (2020), and will be complemented by a selection of her short films and previously unreleased works.

To mark the opening of the exhibition, Fondazione Prada presents a new illustrated publication of the Quaderni series, featuring a conversation between Miranda July and Cindy Sherman, and an essay by exhibition curator Mia Locks.