Artissima 2019 | All Prizes

Constantly searching for beauty and recognized for its innovative and experimental approach, Artissima 2019 confirms its mission of discovery and rediscovery of talents by awarding 6 important prizes. Conceived in collaboration with sponsors and institutions, the prizes are assigned to artists and galleries by international juries composed of curators and directors of the world’s leading contemporary art museums.

The illy Present Future Prize, now in its 19th edition, is assigned by illycaffèto the artist deemed most interesting in the Present Future section, which has been a launching pad for new talent for many years. The winner of the previous edition is Pedro Neves Marques presented by Umberto di Marino (Naples) whose solo show will open at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea during Artissima.

Jury: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Stefan Kalmár, Agustin Pérez Rubio

Launched in 2014 through a partnership with Fondazione Sardi per l’Arte, the Sardi per l’Arte Back to the Future Prize is awarded to an exhibitor in one of the most innovative sections of Artissima, featuring museum-quality solo exhibitions on artists active between the 1960s–1990s. The prize is assigned to the gallery with the most interesting project in terms of historical importance of the artist and booth presentation.

Jury: Marcella Beccaria, Iwona Blazwick, Christine Macel, Lisa Parola

The Refresh Prize powered by Irinox for the Disegni section and launched in 2017, celebrates the artist who most vividly conveys the expressive immediacy of drawing in a contemporary way. Besides the award, since 2018 the initiative includes the acquisition of select works in the Disegni section by Irinox.

Jury: Simon Castets, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Ole G. Slyngstadli

The OGR Award, now in its third edition, is presented by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and in 2019 will enable the acquisition of a video selected from the works proposed by the galleries participating in the fair. The winning work will join the Collection of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and will be presented at the OGR Torino, one of the most dynamic cultural production and sperimentation centre in Europe. The OGR Award confirms Artissima’s role in strengthening the network of and collaborations between cultural platforms in the region. In 2018 the winner of the OGR Award was Tomás Saraceno, presented by the gallery Pinksummer, Genova.

Jury: Naomi Beckwith, Francesco Manacorda, Vittoria Matarrese

The Campari Art Prize, now in its third edition, strengthens the partnership between Artissima and Campari Group, and confirms the brand’s reputation of openness to new ideas, and the fusion between a cutting-edge entrepreneurial spirit and the most experimental artistic research. The prize goes to an artist under 35 featured in one of the sections of the fair, selected for the communicative force and narrative impact of his/her work.The first exhibition produced thanks to the prize was held at the Galleria Campari in Sesto San Giovanni (Milano) in 2018: the 2017 winning artist, Sári Ember, presented a site-specific project, garnering extensive acclaim from critics and the media. On 9 October Campari will present the new project by Rodrigo Hernández (presented by Madragoa gallery, Lisbon), winner of the Campari Art Prize in 2018, titled Pedigree and specifically conceived for the Galleria Campari. The exhibition is curated by Ilaria Bonacossa.

Jury: Philippe Van Cauteren, Manuela Moscoso, Sam Thorne

For the nine consecutive year, Artissima and Museo Ettore Fico will collaborate for the Ettore and Ines Fico Prize, which now takes on a new approach. For the 2019 edition, the prize will take on a new direction. The artistic board of MEF will select one young Italian artist from those showing work at the fair, who thanks to his/her creative research and poeticism will be offered the possibility of presenting a solo exhibition in the spaces of MEF during the course of 2020. In 2018 the winner was Georgia Sagri, presented by Anthony Reynolds gallery, London.

Besides the six prizes, the New Entries Fair Fund, now in its 2nd edition, supported by Professional Trust Company in collaboration with Artissima, is a fund created to encourage the participation of young galleries (that have been open for less than 5 years), seen as the most innovative in terms of research and talent scouting.

Every year three candidate galleries in the New Entries section, selected for the quality of their research, receive a contribution of 4,000 euros each to finance their participation at Artissima.The fair, with the support of Professional Trust Company, thus moves forward with its mission of providing a platform for young creativity by investing in the galleries of the future. In 2019 the three winning galleries chosen by Professional Trust Company and among those chosen by the selection committee of the fair, in collaboration with Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, are: Öktem Aykut, Istanbul with a project on Can Altay and Ihsan Oturmak; Emalin, London, with a project on Athena Papadopoulos; Vin Vin, Vienna, with a project on Myles Starr.