Fondazione Prada's 'Global Antiquity' Explores Ancient Mediterranean-Asia Connections

Opening at Fondazione Prada in Milan on November 5, 2026, 'Global Antiquity' is the third installment in a research series initiated in 2015 with 'Serial Classic' and 'Portable Classic', followed by 'Recycling Beauty' in 2022. Curated by Salvatore Settis with Anna Anguissola and Chiara Ballestrazzi, the exhibition is designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA. Running until March 1, 2027, it examines interactions between Mediterranean and Asian cultures from roughly 700 BC to 1000 AD, presenting ancient art not merely as heritage but as an organic ecosystem influencing present and future. The show features around 150 objects—statues, sculptural fragments, casts, chess pieces, coins, textiles, astrolabes, jewelry, and ceremonial items—on loan from institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Vatican Museums. Displays highlight convergences and intersections, revealing trade routes and political, cultural, economic, and religious links beyond the famed Silk and Spice Roads. Notable objects include an Indian statuette found in Pompeii before the 79 AD eruption, illustrating Mediterranean presences in China and Indian artifacts in Italy. Settis describes the exhibition as 'a constellation of exemplary cases' forming a 'polygonal network of trade and influences across Eurasia', challenging isolationist rhetoric and offering a 'macro-story' of pre-modern globality as an unstable equilibrium open to myriad potentials.