The Spirit in any condition does not burn
The Premio Furla award, conceived by Chiara Bertola, is now organised and promoted by Fondazione Furla, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna and UniCredit Group in collaboration with Viafarini and Arte Fiera.
Created in 2000 in Venice at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, inspired by the model of the British Turner Prize, the Premio Furla has undergone structural evolution over the course of six editions which has consolidated it as the Italian award of excellence in support of young contemporary artists. The creation of an institutional network of contacts with artists, art critics, curators, museum directors and art centres of international renown make the award a fundamental step towards acknowledgement abroad for many Italian artists.
In 2009, the Premio Furla is renewed with a new format aimed at reinforcing the support for creativity, concentrating not only on the financial support in favour of the selected artists, but also on the training and production factors of the new works. In addition to the opportunity to study and work in the artistic residence Gasworks in London, the designated winning artist will in fact be invited to create a work financed by the Fondazione Furla and aimed at public display through its entrustment to MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna.
The award aims to offer itself as an authoritative opportunity for growth and visibility not only for the artists but also for the most recent generation of curators, who have carried out highly skilled collaboration with foreign institutions for many years. A first important novelty for this edition concerns in fact the selection mechanism of the finalist artists, which has taken place following a “journey” into Italian contemporary art carried out by five pairs of curators, each composed of an Italian and a foreign guest curator of international renown, bringing about a dynamic of exchange and comparison between different professional experiences.
The curators selected for the Seventh edition are: Laura Barreca (junior curator of PAN Palazzo delle Arti Naples) and Pelin Uran (independent curator); Caroline Corbetta (independent curator) and Daniel Birnbaum (curator, rector of the Staedelschule of Frankfurt and director of the 53rd International Art Biennial Exhibition in Venice); Francesco Manacorda (curator of the Barbican Art Gallery, London) and Raimundas Malasauskas (writer and curator of Artists Space, New York); Alessandro Rabottini (curator of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo) and Yilmaz Dziewior (writer and independent curator, Hamburg); Andrea Viliani (curator of MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna) and Chus Martinez (head curator of MACBA – Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona).
The five selected artists who will compete as finalists for the Premio Furla 2009 are: Giorgio Andreotta Calò (Venice, 1979), Meris Angioletti (Bergamo, 1977), Giulia Piscitelli (Naples, 1965), Alberto Tadiello (Vicenza, 1983) and Ian Tweedy (Hahn-D, 1982).
The artist-patroness of the Premio Furla 2009 is Marina Abramovic, who designed the graphic image and created the title of this Seventh edition of the Award: The Spirit in any condition does not burn.
A second major novelty is the request that the five finalist artists present an original project. The Premio Furla also intends to renew itself in this case by responding to a requirement that is very common in the Italian system, that is the possibility for young artists to design and create new productions.
The five projects will be presented in Bologna during Arte Fiera Art First 2009 (from 23rd to 26th January 2009) while Saturday 24th January at 3.00pm the same fitting context will host a round table about the central themes of the Seventh edition of the award: a reflection on the role of the curator and the idea of the project will be tackled during a round table that will take place on.
The international jury composed of Marina Abramovic (artist and patroness of the Premio Furla 2009), Alessio Antoniolli (director of Gasworks, London), Zdenka Badovinac (director of Moderna Galerija / Museum of Modern Art, Lubiana), Roberto Daolio (critic and independent curator) and Hans Ulrich Obrist (co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, London), will choose the winner, whose name will be announced on the same day, at the end of the conference.
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