Over the last decade, Yang Fudong has garnered international attention for his film, video, and photography works, becoming one of China’s most celebrated contemporary artists. The presentation of his five-film cycle, Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, was a highlight at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Effortlessly slipping between Shanghai’s glamorous past and its affluent present, the characters that drift through many of Yang’s works are nothing if not fashionable — unknowable, indifferent, and always gorgeous. Now Prada has tapped Yang to create a new film as part of their Spring/Summer 2010 menswear campaign.
Titled First Spring, the 9-minute, black-and-white work features Prada-clad models floating — with the help of black umbrellas — through the skies of 1930s or ’40s-era Shanghai, while members of Imperial Court traverse the streets below. In other scenes, they strike poses in ornate interiors that evoke the glory of old Shanghai. With its dreamlike beauty, First Spring is inspired by a Chinese proverb: “The whole year’s work depends on a good start in spring.”
The film will debut across digital platforms beginning in early February. The project is the latest in a long series of collaborations between contemporary artists and the fashion house; the Fondazione Prada has been presenting major exhibitions at its Milan exhibition space since 1993.

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