Chinese artist Cao Fei has entered into a collaboration with Prada on a special project, “Code Human”, starring Chinese idol Cai Xu Kun to showcase the Prada Fall/Winter 2019 menswear collection.
The project, which explores “the meaning of iconography, idolatry, fandom and adoration in our super-media age”, is part of a long-standing program of cross-media Prada campaigns and projects spanning the fields of design, architecture, cinema, and art. Prada continues in this campaign to collaborate with leading creative practitioners to explore the intersection of different cultural disciplines and experiences.
“Upon reflection, nobody is as crazy as Miuccia Prada to think of this pairing, asking a Chinese artist to photograph a Chinese ‘idol’,” said Cao Fei. “I was excited for many days afterward I received the proposal, not only because of Cai Xu Kun, but about the project itself, to have this opportunity to plumb these cultural depths, using a real-life ‘idol’ to communicate with the tens of millions of followers behind him. As an artist, you cannot ignore those who stand behind him. How should I represent somebody else’s idol?”
“Code Human” debuted on June 1 to coincide with Prada’s Spring/Summer 2020 fashion show in Shanghai.