Prada at Prada Rong Zhai — Michael Wang Lake Tai exhibition (2022)

Prada Rong Zhai, the restored Shanghai residence, hosted Michael Wang's Lake Tai exhibition across its domestic rooms from November 2022.

The venue

Prada Rong Zhai is a restored early-20th-century residence in central Shanghai, built for the Rong family and later reopened by Prada as a cultural venue. Its rooms, corridors, staircases and enclosed garden keep their original domestic scale and period finishes, so exhibitions are encountered room by room rather than in one open hall.

How the space was used

For Lake Tai the works were installed through the house's rooms, so visitors moved sequentially through domestic interiors rather than a single gallery. The 'Taihu (Taihu stones)' series, developed with students from Tongji University, sat alongside pieces on the lake region's natural and cultural heritage and on the history of Chinese garden art. An opening reception was held on 9 November 2022.

Why it works here

The house's own architecture and garden setting give the garden-history and stone works a context a neutral gallery cannot. Room-scale spaces suit quiet, object-based installations, and Prada's ongoing artist exhibition programme in the building gives visitors a reason to move through the whole residence.