The 24-hour Museum, a collaboration between AMO, Prada and artist Francesco Vezzoli, opened in Paris at the Palais d'Iéna, a modernist pavilion built by Auguste Perret in 1937. The one-off event - including an opening night party, public and press tours, and visits by schoolchildren - will be a staging of a "fake" museum, examining the modes in which art is presented and consumed, and the role of the museum as a social condensor.

AMO's Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli comments: "This is a new step in the ongoing collaboration between AMO and Prada. For us, it's an opportunity to question the conditions of the museum we so often encounter."

AMO has designed three types of exhibition spaces for the concrete interiors of the Palais d'Iéna: one classical and propagandistic, framed by the monumental curving stairs; one experimental contemporary, featuring a cage surrounding the main hall, illuminated with pink neon; and one named "Storage or Salon de Refusés", inspired by forgotten museums and warehouses. Vezzoli's statues - featuring the faces of contemporary celebrities - will be installed throughout the spaces.

The result is an ephemeral "total museum" that hosts a sequence of rituals unfolding through the 24 hours.

For the 24-Hour Museum AMO reflects on the idea of the museum as a “social laboratory”, investigating different kinds of exhibition spaces and the rituals they frame: from classic 18th century museums to “propaganda machines” such as Hitler’s Haus der Kunst in Munich; from informal art storages to pristine white cubes; and, finally, to the commercialization of public museums. Instead of one single type of exhibition space for the monumental modernist Palais d’Iena, AMO proposes three different moments:

1 Experimental and Contemporary
The biggest part of the installation. A monumental pink neon cage turns the main space into a psychedelic concrete and metal nave. It hosts the majority of Vezzoli “statues” and the private dinner.

2 The main concrete stair features one special statue with a background of three huge red curtains. For the cocktails.

3. Inspired by inaccessible but precious museum archives, and located in a hidden part of the ground floor, this is space will be used as a small scale disco. It’s accessible through layer of stretched green velvet, and it features imaginary relics of Vezzoli’s art.