Michael Wang's 'Extinct in the Wild' at Fondazione Prada, Milan

Michael Wang's solo exhibition 'Extinct in the Wild' at Fondazione Prada in Milan transforms the gallery into a temporary natural history museum, showcasing species that survive only through human intervention. The project originated from the 2013 Curate Awards, an international competition by Fondazione Prada and Qatar Museums to discover curatorial talent. Wang, born in 1981, is known for using global-scale systems—species distribution, climate change, world economy—as artistic material. His previous work 'Carbon Copies' explored the link between art production and greenhouse gas emissions. The exhibition features plants and animals classified as 'extinct in the wild,' existing solely in captivity. In the dark Galleria Nord, three glass-and-aluminum incubators with artificial lights sustain selected species, alongside twenty photographs taken since 2014. Specimens include the Cryptanthus fosterianus from western Brazil and the Ambystoma mexicanum, an aquatic salamander from Mexico City. The photos depict species in their original habitats before extinction. One highlighted plant is the Brighamia insignis from Hawaii, last seen in 2014 and saved by botanists who hand-pollinated its seeds on Kaua'i's cliffs. The exhibition runs in 2017.