Miart 2024: awarded the acquisition and committee prizes. Here are the winners

Awarded the acquisition and commission prizes of Miart 2024, the international modern and contemporary art fair in Milan organized by Fiera Milano: Fondazione Henraux Sculpture Commission, Orbital Cultura Prize - Nexi Group, Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize, SZ Sugar miart Commission, Massimo Giorgetti Prize.

The second edition of Fondazione Henraux Sculpture Commission, which involves the commissioning of a work in marble to be exhibited during Art Week 2025 at a public institution in Milan, was awarded to Anna Boghiguian (1946, Cairo, Egypt) in the booth of Galleria Franco Noero (Turin) in the Portal section. The prize includes a cash award and the activation of a residency at the Henraux company in Querceta di Seravezza (Lucca), where the artist will be confronted with historical craftsmen and innovative technologies to realize the project. The international jury chaired by Edoardo Bonaspetti (Artistic Director, Henraux Foundation, Querceta di Seravezza; Founder and Co-Director Ordet and Lenz Press, Milan) and composed of Mohamed Almusibli (Director/Curator, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel), Gianfranco Maraniello (Director, Area Musei d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea del Comune di Milano) and Abaseh Mirvali (Curator of Art and Architecture and Cultural Strategist, Mexico City/San Francisco) explains: “Boghiguian’s works offer a poetic look at the human condition and are able to offer unique and passionate interpretations of our world. Experimentation, freedom and inclusion define an aesthetic quest that is valuable in its themes and connections. We decided to award this extraordinary artist for the richness of her expressive language, capable of weaving emotions and social values between past and present.”

The Orbital Cultura Prize - Nexi Group - the only award within miart exclusively dedicated to photography that aims to endow Italy’s historic museums with high-quality contemporary images, now in its second edition, selects Guido Guidi (1941, Cesena, Italy) at miart with Viasaterna (Milan) in the Established section, who will be commissioned to document photographic work, with an award of 10.000 euros, of the exteriors and common spaces of Castello Sforzesco (a museum pole to which this edition of the prize is dedicated, realized in collaboration with the City of Milan on the occasion of Milano Art Week). The jury composed of Paola Nicolin (Contemporary Art Historian, Artistic Director XNL Piacenza Arte - Piacenza and Vigevano Foundation, Professor of Contemporary Art History and Museum Studies, University Bocconi, Milan), Silvia Paoli, Art and Photography Historian, Conservator of Cultural Heritage and Head of the Civic Photographic Archive of Milan) and by Francesco Zanot (Jury President, Curator, Essayist, Photography Critic, Artistic Director, Biennale Foto/Industria Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Director of the Master in Photography at NABA, Milan) motivates the commission as follows: “Guido Guidi’s career has constantly intertwined the themes of architecture and anthropized space, making his entire photographic corpus a fundamental tool for investigating the relationship between individuals, objects, infrastructures and buildings, as well as the modes of their representation. In light of this evidence, the jury recognizes the extraordinary value of a commission that will lead to the creation of works that provide an interpretation as grounded as it is unpredictable of a place like the Castello Sforzesco, the first Milanese monument to become the subject of a work by Guidi, whose historical value reverberates in the multiplicity of its functions in the present. Devoid of any decorative or ornamental intent, Guidi’s work promotes a scholarly attitude toward the world that results in an indispensable example for his observers. Grounded exclusively in the language of photography, Guidi’s works challenge appearance, privilege depth over surface and are the result of a point of view that is always clear and recognizable, making the author’s stance an essential, distinctive and crucially important element in the current artistic and social landscape.”

Luca Monterastelli (1983, Forlimpopoli, Italy) at miart with the Lia Rumma Gallery (Milan-Naples) in the Established section was awarded the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize worth 10,000 euros, in memory of the President of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia: the artist will have the opportunity to create his work in Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, with the assistance of the artisans working there. The jury composed of Francesco Arena (Artist, Cassano delle Murge), Bruna Roccasalva (Artistic Director, Fondazione Furla, Milan), Bernabò Visconti di Modrone (Founder and CEO Artshell, President and CEO Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, CEO Condense, Milan) and Velasco Vitali (Artist, Bellano - Milan) motivates its choice as follows: “The jury unanimously awards the artist Luca Monterastelli recognizing the value of his multi-year research in sculptural practice. The jury awards the prize in the conviction that the confrontation with a material as new to the artist as bronze will open new interesting paths within his research.”

Instead, it is David Lieske ’s project represented by Corvi-Mora (London) that wins the first SZ Sugar miart commission worth 5,000 euros. For the first time in the history of miart and music publisher SZ Sugar, through a free interpretation Open Call, an artist was commissioned to produce a work of art on the first page of a score. For this edition, Allez-hop, a mimicry tale for mezzo-soprano, 8 mimes, ballet and orchestra composed between 1952 and 1959 by Luciano Berio with texts by Italo Calvino was chosen, which tells of the life of the bored bourgeois society agitated by the escape of a flea from its tamer: a social critique moved by the two artists toward the fixity of the 1950s. The selected work, realized, was presented at the fair at the space dedicated to the music publishing house.

Finally, it is Isabella Costabile (1991, New York, United States), at miart with Andrew Kreps Gallery, (New York) in the Established section, the artist selected for the second edition of the Massimo Giorgetti Prize, which stems from the desire to support young artists at the beginning of their careers. The prize worth 5,000 euros awarded as support for practice and research was given by the jury composed of Margherita Castiglioni (Art Consultant, Milan), Stefano Cernuschi (Co-Director, Ordet, Milan) and Massimo Giorgetti (Founder and Creative Director, MSGM, Milan) with this motivation: “Isabella’s works moved us because they reminded us of our childhood. In our digital present, the artist’s sculptural compositions seem to crystallize in their physical elements-a rake, a lampshade, bolts - fragments of marginal experiences and familiar episodes into new forms-they are surprising totems that emanate a sense of duration and recovery, in a magical balance between past and future. In these works I found life and humanity, care and memory.”

Image: Henraux Sculpture Commission Foundation to Anna Boghiguian at the Franco Noero Gallery booth.

Miart 2024: awarded the acquisition and committee prizes. Here are the winners

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