Artissima, Turin’s International Contemporary Art Fair, has announced the winners of the thirteen pri zes and awards given in its thirty-second edition. The 2025 edition includes four prizes created in collaboration with partner companies, art institutions and foundations; two awards dedicated to the memory of prominent personalities on the art scene; and seven prizes designed to support emerging galleries and artists. The event thus confirms its role as a platform dedicated to the research and enhancement of contemporary creativity.
The illy Present Future Prize, now in its 25th edition, was awarded to Louis Morlae, presented by the Rose Easton Gallery in London. Produced in collaboration with illycaffè, the prize identifies the most innovative project in the Present Future section, dedicated to emerging artists. The jury, composed of Katerina Gregos (EMST Athens), Lauriane Gricourt (Les Abattoirs Musée - FRAC Occitanie, Toulouse), Patrizia Sandretto Re Re baudengo (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin) and Damien Zhang (Aranya Art Center), offers the winner the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo during the next edition of the fair. The prize, established in 2001, has awarded artists such as Shizuka Yokomizo, Phil Collins, Patricia Esquivias, Rachel Rose, Pedro Neves Marques and Radamés “Juni” Figueroa over the years, charting a quarter century of mapping emerging talent.
“The jury has selected Louis Morlae, represented by Rose Easton Gallery, as the winner of the Present Future Prize,” the statement reads. “Morlae creates highly intelligent hybrid objects that fuse technological imagery with speculative storytelling. His works investigate the cultural impact of technology, exploring the connections between digital worlds, techno-fetishistic objects and narrative fiction. Morlae’s installations often bring to life immersive ”invented realities,“ expressed through an utterly unique sculptural language. Treating virtual tools as actual sculptural media, the artist transforms futuristic aesthetics into tangible form, building a bridge between the virtual and the physical through extraordinary craftsmanship and deep conceptual coherence. In this way he defines a new language for technology-mediated art.”
The second edition of the Orlane Prize for Art went to gallery ZERO... in Milan, Italy. Sponsored by French luxury cosmetics brand Orlane, the award supports the research and entrepreneurial journey of a gallery that stands out for its exhibition quality and dedication to creative talent. The jury, composed of Lolita Jablonskiené (National Gallery of Art, Vilnius), Andrea Lissoni (Haus der Kunst, Munich) and Bettina Steinbrügge (MUDAM, Luxembourg), awarded a financial prize of 10,000 euros.
" ZERO ’s booth ... stands out for its radical curatorial gesture,“ the committee argued. ”The two sculptures by Michael E. Smith and Francesco Gennari create an encounter of intense emotional power, a special moment of sharing that transcends the significance of the individual works. The presentation, at once engaging and dense with meaning, unfolds within the essential structure of the booth, revealing a deep sense of dedication and attention to the artists represented by the gallery. One senses an attitude of genuine generosity and care, extending from the works to their very presentation. The jury believes that these two works belong to each other and should remain together forever."
For contemporary photography, the Tosetti Value Prize, in its sixth edition, was awarded to the Alterazioni Video collective, presented by the Guido Costa Projects gallery in Turin. Launched in 2020 in connection with the project Perspectives. The Economy of Images, the prize supports the artist whose photographic research proves significant in interpreting contemporary social and economic transformations. In addition to a prize of 2,500 euros, the artist will develop a project in dialogue with the Prospects platform in 2026, and one work will be acquired in the Corporate Collection of the Tosetti Value Family Office.
“Video Alterations investigates the relationship between images, power, communication devices and global geopolitical issues,” says the jury. “Since the early 2000s, the collective has developed a personal path of artistic production linked to recurring themes that tend to analyze network cultures and their hegemonic functions in orienting the political culture of the present. Born as part of a generation that grew up appropriating the subversive and transformative potential of the nascent Internet, over the years they have constructed a discourse deeply conscious of the upheaval of the positivist political premises on which they had set lattivism in the 1990s. We are both donkeys is part of the recent series Dead writers smell like forgotten piss, and it elaborates in a decisive, profound, and relevant way the relationship between image and real through traditional photography, its materialization through printing, the possibility of transforming it through digitized capture, and its further elaboration by resorting to Artificial Intelligence. Faced with the enactment of this complex production process, the work asks viewers, what is reality. How to distinguish it from its construction through digital media? How are the images processed by networks related to the world around us? How do they construct it, building truths and truthful fictions? Alterazioni Video’s work does not provide an answer to these questions but invites further reflection on current issues.”
The VANNI Occhiali #artistroom Prize, fifth edition, was won by Valentina Furian, represented by UNA Gallery , Piacenza and Milan. Created in 2019, the prize enhances artistic research capable of offering an original look at reality. The jury, composed of Nicolas Ballario, Cristian Chironi and Fiammetta Griccioli, awarded the winner 2,500 euros and the opportunity to collaborate on the design of a capsule collection of artist’s glasses.
“Valentina Furian’s poetics is characterized by her ability to explore and conjugate the relationship between body and gaze, between human and post-human dimensions, generating unprecedented visions that are in dialogue with Vanni’s experimental and innovative research,” the jury said."
The Matteo Viglietta Award, sponsored by La Gaia Collection, was awarded to Davide Stucchi, presented by Martina Simeti Gallery in Milan. Established in 2022 to commemorate Matteo Viglietta, a collector close to Artissima, the award includes the acquisition of a work destined for the La Gaia Collection and usable as the cover of the company’s “catalog.”
“For its irony, poetry and ability to open potentially infinite questions, which are reflected outside of us - as far as the cosmos - and peer into us - as far as our unconscious - the La Gaia Collection has decided to award the Italian artist Davide Stucchi with the work Rising, falling, looking for the sun, 2025 exhibited by Martina Simeti Gallery,” the commission confirms. “This is a work made with industrial and everyday materials, which embodies the philosophy that has always guided the La Gaia Collection in its relationship with creativity, which is capable of realizing itself in the folds of the everyday and manifesting itself through the use of any expressive medium. This work is a small unwritten tale, in which each of us can recognize ourselves as a novel Icarus, or a frustrated Narcissus, and how life, perhaps, returns the image that we ourselves ”make“ of her.and invites the winner to join them for the photo.The acquisition institutionalizes a practice initiated and established by Viglietta, who used to choose a work each year that had some relevance to the materials and tools sold by his company - Viglietta Matteo spa, a leading importer and wholesaler of hardware. The work acquired at Artissima, in addition to becoming part of the La Gaia Collection, may be used as the cover of the ”catalog,“ and in that sense it will have a connection to one of the hundreds of products or materials it contains, thus celebrating that ironic and irreverent spirit that has always distinguished Viglietta, a man with an open mind and contagious smile, interested in the discovery and rediscovery of radical practices not always recognized by the market. In 2024 the Prize was awarded to 2024 Francesca Cataldi, Gramma_Epsilon Gallery, Athens.”
The Carol Rama Award, sponsored by the Fondazione Sardi per l’Arte and GAM in Turin, awarded Zoe Williams, presented by Ciaccia Levi (Paris and Milan). The award, now in its sixth year, highlights artists who interpret the unconventional female freedom and creativity embodied by Carol Rama. The jury, composed of Michela Alessandrini, Véronique Collard-Bovy and Giorgio Di Domenico, awarded a prize of 2,500 euros.
“We award Zoe Williams the Carol Rama Prize in recognition of her many years of research on Carol Rama’s work; for her references to the artist’s vocabulary, her sensual symbolism, and her emotional landscape; for her freedom in embodying Rama’s irreverent, seductive, and tension-filled spirit; and for her ability to pass on the artist’s legacy by actualizing her gaze,” the jury continued.
For the third edition of the Diana Bracco Prize - Women Entrepreneurs in Art, the winners are Marta Barbieri and Paola Bonino of the UNA gallery in Piacenza and Milan. Promoted by the Bracco Foundation with the Roberto de Silva and Diana Bracco Foundation, the award recognizes the figure of the emerging gallery owner capable of combining entrepreneurship and cultural research. The jury, composed of Elisabetta Barisoni, Monica Bonvicini and Christian Leveet, awarded a grant of 10,000 euros.
“The jury, after careful consideration, expressed unanimous appreciation for the freshness and energy of a courageous proposal, which denotes a solid entrepreneurial commitment with great attention to women artists and the future of the gallery,” the committee further stated.
The Oelle Foundation awarded the Ancient Mediterranean Prize to Thomias Radin, presented by Esther Schipper Gallery (Berlin and Paris). The prize, in its fourth edition, includes a residency in Sicily to develop a project on Mediterranean cultural contaminations. The jury included Caterina Riva, Alberto Salvadori and Andrea Viliani.
“Embodying in his method of research and work,” says the jury, “the possible relationship with communities and their contexts and, at the same time, developing a multifaceted approach that crosses and interweaves different artistic practices, from painting to sculpture, from installation to dance and music, the jury of the Oelle Mediterraneo prize, which includes a residency in Catania, Sicily, is unanimously awarded to artist Thomias Radin, represented at the fair by the Esther Shipper gallery in Berlin in the Present Future section.”
The Pista 500 Prize, sponsored by Pinacoteca Agnelli, was won by Iris Touliatou, represented by Sylvia Kouvali(London and Piraeus). The award offers the opportunity to create a work on the permanent billboard of the Lingotto’s rooftop runway, in dialogue with the Pinacoteca’s historical collection.
" Iris Touliatou’s work,“ the committee argues, ”is always situated, in the sense that, as an artist and writer, she adopts from time to time the discipline and approach most appropriate to each intervention. Touliatou investigates, on a plane of equal intensity, the conditions of her own work as an artist and the infrastructures that generate institutional, social, economic, psychological and libidinal conditions and relationships. She does so with a deep poetic sensitivity. In his hands, the situation-and thus site-specificity-becomes a game of appearance and disappearance, in which his most incisive questions continue to resonate between the work and the context in which it is placed.The Pinacoteca Agnelli-a former factory now converted into a shopping mall, “crowned” by a museum and sculpture garden overlooking Turin, with the Alps in the background-perfectly accommodates this situated approach, evoking questions related to post-industrial labor, consumerism, and the relationship between art institutions and their city. We are deeply pleased to welcome Iris’ voice and work in this context, inviting her to create the billboard for the 2026 Pista 500 Prize."
The Merz Foundation awarded the “With Eyes Closed...” prize to Caroline Cordeiro, presented by GalateadiGallery São Paulo and Salvador. The award, now in its fifth edition, includes a residency in Sicily and is for artists who best interpret the Foundation’s research on young Mediterranean art.
“The jury decided to award the prize to Caroline Cordeiro (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1983),” the jury continues further, “fascinated by the formal rigor and poetic attitude of her work, as well as her commitment to reinterpreting the conceptual legacy, shifting it to narrative meanings involving colonial history. América do Sal is a site-specific installation, a proposal of an imaginary territory distinguished by the use of simple materials with great evocative power. Caroline Cordeiro refers to spiritual practices understood as tools for personal and collective transformation. With this prize, the jury intends to celebrate not only the artist’s work, but also the debut of the Brazilian gallery Galatea at the Artissima fair.”
The new Vilnius Residency Prize, first established in 2025, was awarded to Rodrigo Hernandez (gallery P420, Bologna and ChertLüdde, Berlin) and Pietro Moretti (1/9unosunove, Rome). The project was created as part of the Lithuanian Culture in Italy 2025-2026 program and offers a one-month residency in Vilnius, at the Užupis Art Incubator and the Trakų Vokė Residency, with curatorial support from CAC Vilnius.
“I would first like to express my gratitude for this special honor: choosing two extraordinary artists from such a large and competitive group of talent was not at all easy,” says Director Valentinas Klimašauskas. "The first artist is Rodrigo Hernández, proposed by two galleries, P420 in Bologna and ChertLüdde in Berlin. Among the many qualities that guided the choice, the intimacy of his research, his technical attention to craftsmanship and his ability to interweave references to pre-Columbian art, European Modernism and a poetic stylistic individuality stand out. The second artist is Pietro Moretti (Rome, 1996), presented by gallery 1/9unosunove. His oil and watercolor paintings traverse political, mythological, mystical, poetic and fantastical narratives in a visual language of great density and imagination. In selecting these artists, I hoped that the urban, historical and natural landscapes of Vilnius might inspire new references, conversations or even new works. In any case, the Vilnius art scene will be happy to welcome two artists endowed with a vision as intense as it is refined."
The Ettore and Ines Fico Prize, sponsored by the MEF - Ettore Fico Museum in Turin, was awarded to Giovanni Termini, presented by the ME Vannucci Gallery in Pistoia. Established in 2010, the prize promotes young artists through an acquisition, selecting figures who stand out for poetic research and international relevance.
“Giovanni Termini is, in the international art scene, an autonomous and independent voice who stubbornly follows his own personal line defined for several years now through exhibitions and installations,” says the commission. “Consistent with his research determined through conceptual reflections, which go beyond the simple use of the object as a contemporary ready-made, the artist has developed his own vocabulary that sometimes borders on irony, learned quotation and provocation as a challenge to collectors and gallery owners. Without concealing an aesthetic, which transcends the frontiers defined by the ”beautiful“ and the ”pure,“ his installation, design and sculptural work today expresses the need to differentiate himself in a landscape where everything is expressed only through colors, painting and the romantic poetics of making through illustrative and recognizable images. Giovanni Termini represents what every artist (and every man) should pursue in his life and research: consistency.”
Finally, theArtissima New Entries Fund, now in its third year, supported the galleries Vohm (Seoul), Trotoar(Zagreb) and zazà (Milan, Naples). The fund, part of the three-year Identity track, is intended to support the participation of emerging galleries in the New Entries section, confirming the fair’s commitment to international scouting.
“On behalf of the jury, Robert Leckie, Lucas Morin, Maja Wismer, and myself, Zippora Elders, we are pleased to thank all the participants in the New Entries section,” the commisison concludes. “Galleries play a vital role in providing space for artists and supporting diverse practices. In unstable times like these, we applaud the courage to open a gallery and make bold artistic choices. While we were impressed and fascinated by all the work presented, we selected three galleries that stood out in particular.In alphabetical order: Trotoar (Zagreb) presents an immersive installation by multifaceted artist Marko Tadić, who collects postcards, maps and archival images - ranging from Yugoslav architecture to transforming rural towns - and combines them with drawings, paper silhouettes and sculptures. The jury recognized Vohm (Seoul) for its precise and careful double presentation of artists Hana Kim and Eun Yeoung Lee. The installation highlighted the solidity of their painting and ceramic practices as well as their critical approach to their respective languages. Made on a customized exhibition system, the Zazà (Milan and Naples) presentation devoted to Shaan Bevan’s large meditative drawings stood out for its combination of strength and sensitivity.”
With thirteen awards given, Artissima 2025 reaffirms its role as an observatory and laboratory of trends in contemporary art, maintaining a strong focus on experimentation, dialogue between disciplines and support for new generations of artists and gallerists.
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| Artissima 2025: here are the winners of the thirteen prizes of the thirty-second edition |
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