Winner: Exhibition design (interior) of the year 2023. Didier Faustino / Mesarchitecture has designed The Golden Age of Grotesque exhibition for the late Paula Rego's first-ever solo show in Hannover, Germany.

This project was the exhibition design for the first-ever solo show in Germany of the Portuguese/British artist Paula Rego (1935-2022).

The aim of the scenography – named The Golden Age of Grotesque – is to emphasise the contemporaneity of Paula Rego's work, as well as to echo the violence of the world she describes.

Walls to hang her paintings have been designed with protruding parts, giving them a grotesque appearance resembling the grotesque figures of the artist.

"[The] wrapping of a thermo-retractable white film, with its stretched and wrinkled parts, gives a sense of both tension and sensuality," said Didier Faustino.

Judges comments: "This exhibition design is a brilliant idea which can be used for other installations and projects, clearly created by designers without stealing the limelight from Paula Rego's artwork. The design decisions make the paintings and the protruding scenography shine symbiotically."

Studio: Didier Faustino / Mesarchitecture
Project: The Golden Age of Grotesque
Credits: Paula Rego (There and Back Again) and Kestner Gesellschaft