At Frieze London 2025, Prada Mode made of the city’s ancient Town Hall not just a venue but a breathing analysis of what it is to view, to be watched, and to be among an audience.
Entitled “The Audience”, this installation work from artists Elmgreen & Dragset confounded the observer with the participant. In a filmic environment, sculptural forms rested immobile in a looping sequence of film images, an eerie tableau that prompted: when we gaze, who is it that really wields control, watcher or watched?
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Outside of the central hall, The Conversation expanded with a second layer of a solitary figure that sits at a café table having a digital conversation, here but far away. It became a time-filled metaphor with attention fragmented and connective-ness both everywhere as well as nowhere.
With these conversations between art and viewership, Prada Mode London reaffirmed its position as a fashion-agnostic cultural platform that is bigger than fashion. It is a conflation of design, intellect, and emotion where sight becomes an experience and not an action.
Finally, “The Audience” wasn’t so much about what was presented. It was about us, the observers, the strayers, and spectators of an era in which viewing itself is performance.
