Going bananas: ‘Run as Slow as You Can’ is a hyperreal comment on our image-obsessed times

One would think that the Indian reboot of HBO’s record-shattering show Succession ought to be based on the patron-and-founder family of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. (It would probably never be allowed to be made, of course, unless it is unabashedly hagiographical like the movie Guru.)

The outlandish arts centre, spoken about in whispers in Mumbai’s social cliques as one with “garish and glitzy interiors”, is currently exhibiting an ambitious feat in the art world: Run as Slow as You Can, a show by Italian surrealist photographer-art-director duo Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.

Succession, coincidently, streams on the business family’s digital streaming venture, Jio Cinema. By a twist of fate, the stunning cover art for New York Magazine 2021 feature on Succession was directed and photographed by Cattelan and Ferrari.

Run as Slow as You Can is conceptualised as a maximalist, surreal and oversaturated walk-through and immersive experience across four floors of the art centre’s four galleries. The first among these, titled Take a Left, Right (?), not-so-gently invites audiences into a visually charged labyrinth. Images inspired by photography, advertising, religious iconography, art history and pop culture are flex-printed and mounted through the narrow maze of the curated gallery space.

As fans know, Cattelan and Ferrari’s flagship agency and magazine Toiletpaper Magazine has caused ripples and provocations across advertising, fashion, and art worlds. A carefully orchestrated...

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