NICOLE COLOMBO IS THE WINNER OF
THE 2022 EDITION OF MMAT ACQUISITION PRIZE
MMAT Acquisition Prize 2022: the awarded artwork
Following the first two editions of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019, 2020, and Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection announces the winner of the fourth edition of its Acquisition Prize, which this year will consist of a residency offered to the winner in collaboration with Kupfer Project:
NICOLE COLOMBO IS THE WINNER OF
THE 2022 EDITION OF MMAT ACQUISITION PRIZE
MMAT Acquisition Prize 2022: the awarded artwork
Following the first two editions of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019, 2020, and Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection announces the winner of the fourth edition of its Acquisition Prize, which this year will consist of a residency offered to the winner in collaboration with Kupfer Project:
Following the first and second edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019 and 2020, Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection announces the winner of the third edition of its Acquisition Prize
Following the first and second edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019 and 2020, Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection announces the winner of the third edition of its Acquisition Prize
Following the first edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019, Mauro Mattei Art Trust launches the second edition of the Prize for 2020, the very first fully digital acquisition prize ever made accompanied by the first remote cocktail reception taking place on the 28th April 2020
Following the first edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019, Mauro Mattei Art Trust launches the second edition of the Prize for 2020, the very first fully digital acquisition prize ever made accompanied by the first remote cocktail reception taking place on the 28th April 2020
The first edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize has been conceived for FEA, Festival dos Espaços dos Artistas de Lisboa, in order to be the first acquisition project of the MMAT Collection, which is institutionally aimed to promote and support emergent art in all its forms.
The first edition of MMAT Acquisition Prize has been conceived for FEA, Festival dos Espaços dos Artistas de Lisboa, in order to be the first acquisition project of the MMAT Collection, which is institutionally aimed to promote and support emergent art in all its forms.
NICOLE COLOMBO IS THE WINNER OF
THE 2022 EDITION OF MMAT ACQUISITION PRIZE
MMAT Acquisition Prize 2022: the awarded artwork
Following the first two editions of MMAT Acquisition Prize in 2019, 2020, and Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection announces the winner of the fourth edition of its Acquisition Prize, which this year will consist of a residency offered to the winner in collaboration with Kupfer Project:
NICOLE COLOMBO
Born in 1991, Nicole Colombo is emerging as one of the most interesting sculptors of her generation in the Milanese context. Far from a sort of educated “italian approach”, the artist is imposing an aesthetic that is much closer to that of the two Berlin-based artists Monica Bonvicini and Anne Imhof - both solid starting points of her research and imaginary. From them, Nicole Colombo extrapolates the use of space, the artworks’ staging and the capability to sharply define an original vocabulary through the use of materials.
Nicole Colombo’s domestic and large-scale sculptures and installations create a tension in the space and in the observer as they possess a sort of living energy, while the chosen materials and their combination result to be at the same time libidinal and repulsive. An anthropological approach stands at the core of her research: the artist observes the dichotomies that often characterize the western societies and the difficulty of the human being to accept their co-existence. Leveraging our common imaginary, her attempt gives back to the observer artworks that represent the duality of things, creating abstract characters that portrait each of us.
Leather, aluminum, synthetic hairs, chains, plexiglass and hooks give birth to an impeccable and highly aestheticized vision in order to attract the viewers and introduce them to a wider range of possibilities as a lens to approach reality[1].
Selected exhibitions include: paradise is exactly like where you are right now only much, much better, Palazzo Franzone Spinola di Luccoli, Genova; 2021: Ultravioletto Residency, Treviso; Fluid Shapes, brand collaboration with Espressoh make-up, Tube Culture Hall, Milano; Avalanche, Regatta Space, Düsseldorf; Over and Above, Drina Gallery, Belgrade; 2020: Do you think this is the best way to start, MASSIMO, Milano; 2019: The Oranges of the Sunrise, editorial contribution, Media Naranja, Marseille.
The 2022 Edition: Connected Event and Selection Criteria
Connected Event: “paradise is exactly like where you are right now only much, much better”
After two pandemic years, MMAT Acquisition Prize is willing to take back its original role of connection with “in the flesh“ international art events, with the aim at offering a valuable support to emerging artists.
The Connected Event for 2022 has been a group exhibition that took place in Genoa (Italy) throughout the months of March and April 2022: “paradise is exactly like where you are right now only much, much better” a group show featuring twenty-two Italian and international emerging artists, four galleries, and a number of curators and collectives involved as contributors.
paradise is exactly like where you are right now only much, much better has been an exhibition entirely produced by young art professionals with the intention of giving visibility to the most interesting Italian talents.
Italian artists deserve to grow internationally and what they require is being offered with new tools and solid opportunities to boost their careers: and this is the purpose of the 2022 MMAT Acquisition Prize
The Selection Criteria and the Residency Prize
For its 2022 MMAT Acquisition Prize take shape of a Residency Price thanks to the partnership with a London residency with which the MMAT Founder strongly believes to share the same ethics and philosophy: Kupfer Project.
Kupfer’s mission is to contribute to a more accessible and inclusive art industry, favoring the development of a richer, more diverse, and innovative art ecosystem.
Through the Residency Price at Kupfer the awarded artist will get:
The goal of the Acquisition/Residency price is to create the perfect conditions for the awarded resident to develop an international art career, increasing the quality of the work as well as their influence and value, while promoting cultural exchange.
Participating Artists
Flavia Albu, Sveva Angeletti, Simona Barbera, Thomas Berra, Jonny Briggs, Nicole Colombo, Daniele Costa, Gaia De Megni, Matteo De Nando, Inside Job (Ula Lucińska & Michał Knychaus), Rada Koželj, Davide La Montagna, Eleonora Luccarini, Agnieszka Mastalerz, Claudia Petraroli, Fabio Ranzolin, Nuvola Ravera, Jacopo Rinaldi, Davide Sgambaro, Marco Siciliano, Elio Ticca, Jonathan Vivacqua
The 2022 Selection Committee
The 2022 Selection Committee was formed by four art professionals selected among the most actively engaged in supporting emerging artists worldwide and chaired by MMAT’s founder Mauro Mattei:
The Prize has been attributed to the artist who has been deemed most capable of making the most of an international residency. The selection criteria considered the artist's potential to grow nationally and internationally, the fact that he or she was an emerging young artist, based in Italy, unrepresented and unprivileged, but whose practice was considered to be able to make its way in the UK scene.
The Committee has evaluated the intrinsic value of the entire practice of the artist, and the artowrks presented for the exhibition in Genoa and has also carefully considered it in the specific ecosystem into which it has been conceived and realised.
The Awarding Ceremony
The Selection Committee announced the awarded artist on July 20th 2022, the awarding ceremony will take place in London during September 2022.
About MMAT
MMAT is a not for profit organization with an active philanthropic role, consistent with it’s founder Mauro Mattei constant engagement in supporting contemporary art both as longtime patron of Contemporary Art Society in London and as a Club GAMeC supporter in Italy.
MMAT is focused on young and emerging artists: all the acquisitions are coordinated by the Scientific Committee of the Trust, composed by a curator, an art advisor and an art collector, selected among the most experienced and competent in their respective fields of activity. MMAT wants to foster collaboration and dialogue among all the players actively supporting art and artists (museums, foundations, collections and other art trusts).
About MMAT Acquisition Prize
MMAT Acquisition Prize is conceived as an itinerant award aimed at supporting emerging art in all its forms. The main purpose of the Prize is to allow young artists and their projects to grow with a view to discovering, valorising and highlighting the best of the new trends of international contemporary art.
MMAT Acquisition Prize doesn’t have a fixed focus in terms of medium, nor it has a predetermined Selection Committee, as its purpose is to be nomadic and adaptable to
different contexts and countries. The Prize is paired each year with different art events, festivals, fairs or exhibitions with an innovative, experimental and international approach.
The Selection Committee is headed by MMAT founder Mauro Mattei, joined every year by a different jury of members (curators, art critics, art advisors, collectors etc.) connected to the Prize’s context. The awarded artist’s artwork becomes part of the Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection with the goal to valorise and support the work of artists born in the 80’s and 90’s.
The Acquisition Prize so far: the 2019, 2020 and 2021 editions
The 2019 edition took place in the context of FEA Lisboa, an international artists studio festival held during Arco in Lisbon. The Selection Committee was composed by Mauro Mattei and Andrea Baccin and Ilaria Marotta, founders of CURA. Magazine who have selected one awarded project from the 28 artists studios and artist run spaces involved in the FEA Festival which counted 144 artists participating.
The winner of the first MMAT Acquisition Prize has been The Pathfinders, a collaborative collective project conceived, curated and hosted by ABCC (Alexandre Camarao and Bernando Simões Correia).
The 2020 Edition paired a totally digital initiative: Preview London on Artland where three international galleries showcased a number of their artists: Bosse & Baum (London) Clima Gallery (Milan) and Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels).
The 2020 Selection Committee has been formed by four international collectors selected among the most actively engaged in supporting emerging artists worldwide and chaired by MMAT’s founder Mauro Mattei: Francesco and Sveva Taurisano (Collezione Taurisano –
Naples), Sarah Bibas Zolotoff (London), Tobias Arndt (Brussels). The awarded artist was Mary Stephenson (1989, London) of Bosse&Baum with the painting Catch of the Day.
The 2021 edition focused on awarding whom among the artists born from 1985 to 1995 had the greatest potential in terms of artistic career. The Prize has been attributed to the artist who had the most distinguishable relevance not only in terms of quality of artistic practice but also in terms of institutional presence and appreciation during 2020. The committee, composed by the advisor Valeria Biamonti (London), the collector Marco Curina (Milano) and the curator Georgie Pope (Berlin) awarded the Artist Petrit Halilaj as the winner of the edition and the steel sculpture Abetare (Clouds), 2019, is now part of MMAT Collection.The 2020 Edition paired a totally digital initiative: Preview London on Artland where three international galleries showcased a number of their artists: Bosse & Baum (London) Clima Gallery (Milan) and Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels).
The 2020 Selection Committee has been formed by four international collectors selected among the most actively engaged in supporting emerging artists worldwide and chaired by MMAT’s founder Mauro Mattei: Francesco and Sveva Taurisano (Collezione Taurisano – Naples), Sarah Bibas Zolotoff (London), Tobias Arndt (Brussels). The awarded artist was Mary Stephenson (1989, London) of Bosse&Baum with the painting Catch of the Day.
After having focused in 2019 on the artists capabilities of working collectively in an urban environment and in 2020 on the artists giving the most significant contribution to the dialogue on the new digital art fruition as a matter of art investigation on a global scale, the 2021 selection criteria have taken on a different angle. This edition’s selection criteria have been focused on awarding whom among the artists born from 1985 to 1995 has the greatest potential in terms of artistic career based on one specific element: the capability to combine artistic research on the most relevant current social and political issues with a solid presence in the art market and simultaneously with a significant institutional visibility.
The Committee has been invited to propose a shortlist of international artists who have more successfully integrated their artistic practice with the most sensitive issues of our recent times: from gender identity to race conflicts, from world-spread diasporas up to immigration.
The short list has been the following:
- Nora Aurrekoetxea
- Lena Marie Emrich
- Nicholas Grafia
- Petrit Halilaj
- Aneta Kajzer
- Miriam Kongstad
- Ser Serpas
- Marianna Simnett
The 2021 Selection Committee has been formed by four international art professionals selected among the most actively engaged in supporting emerging artists worldwide and chaired by MMAT’s founder Mauro Mattei:
- Valeria and Marco Curina (founders of Marval Collection, Milan)
- Valeria Biamonti (art advisor and collector, London)
- Georgie Pope (Curator at Independent Collectors, Berlin)
The Prize has been attributed to the artist who has had the most distinguishable relevance not only in terms of quality of artistic practice but also in terms of institutional presence and market appreciation during 2020: Petrit Halilaj.
Petrit Halilaj
Abetare (Clouds), 2019
Steel sculpture.
Enlarged reproduction of a drawing found on the school tables of the Primary School "Shotë Galica" Runik, Kosovo.
320 × 253 × 4.5 cm
The series Abetare comprises enlarged steel embodiments of pencil engravings made by generations of Kosovarian elementary schoolchildren on their classroom desks. The desks were taken from the Primary School “Shotë Galica”, where Halilaj studied as a child. During a visit to his former school in 2010, Halilaj witnessed and documented its demolition in favor of a modern building.
The work of Petrit Halilaj centers on the history of his home country Kosovo and his personal experiences fleeing war and migrating across lands and cultures. In Abetare, the artist recalls the experience of his childhood before war took over his country in 1997, celebrating the limitless imagination of children that is infused with playfulness and innocence.
Abetare was displayed for the first time on the occasion of Halilaj’s solo exhibition at Kölnischer Kunstverein in April 2015. In 2017, Halilaj continued this project and elaborated on the table series, shown at the Second Edition of the Mario Merz Prize in Turin, where his presentation won the prize.
Petrit Halilaj’s Abetare is an artwork capable to ignite a debate about the most relevant issues and dynamics of the world we live in as well as triggering a meaningful discussion on our social and political environment. The Prize has never been conceived to be a “political” award but has selected the artist who has been working deeply beyond the aesthetics and the formal art production with an eye to the present and on the confusing and troubled current times.
In times of global pandemic, the fruition of art has been forced to become more if not exclusively digital. And even more, it is felt the need to contribute to the contemporary art fragile ecosystem as emerging galleries and artists are the heartbeat of the art world and are facing economic challenges during this unprecedented period.
That is why Mauro Mattei has decided to launch the 2020 Edition of the Prize in the Context of a totally digital initiative: Preview London on Artland.
From April 7 until April 28 on “Artland viewing rooms” it will be showcased a number of group exhibitions. The first three galleries participating are Bosse & Baum (London), Clima Gallery (Milan), and Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels).
The artists showcased are Carlotta Bailly-Borg, Luke Burton, Merike Estna, and Mary Stephenson (by Bosse and Baum, London), Gianluca Concialdi and Matteo Nasini (by Clima Gallery, Milan), Christiane Blattmann, Vanessa Disler, Mickael Marman, and Jannis Marwitz (by Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels).
The 2020 Selection Committee will be formed by four international collectors selected among the most actively engaged in supporting emerging artists worldwide and chaired by MMAT’s founder Mauro Mattei: Francesco and Sveva Taurisano (Collezione Taurisano, Naples), Sarah Bibas Zolotoff (London), Tobias Arndt (Brussels).
The Selection Committee will announce the awarded artwork at the end of Preview London #1: the selection criteria will be to focus on whom among the artists is giving the most significant contribution to the analysis on how art-making is changing in this difficult time and to the dialogue on the new art fruition as a matter of art investigation on a global scale.
Mary’s work grasped the confusion and anxiousness on subconscious levels of the current times. Looking at her works one can see the absurdity of life, but also a broad spectrum of emotions and feelings. Painting for Mary is a wonderful exercise in playing with all those feelings. She’s orchestrating and conducting a narrative that pulls, tugs, inflates, discards and tests all of those feelings. The characters she paints come straight from her head and tend to be depicting an emotion she is unable to externally express. The artwork chosen to be part of Mauro Mattei Art Trust Collection is:
Catch of the Day, 2019, Oil on canvas, 183 x 213 cm
Mary Stephenson (b.1989) lives and works in London. Her paintings weave narratives around the viewer which draw them into complex and surreal scenes. While exuding a mood of tension and apprehension, Stephenson’s canvases are simultaneously undercut with a distinctive, carnivalesque comedy that stems from a cast of characters who vie for attention with anthropomorphised objects: a sad bowl of olives, a startled fork, a wistful piece of Stilton. Both controlling and controlled by the situations in which she places them, these objects play a central role in her works. The works are semi-autobiographical, reflecting on a childhood which Stephenson describes as “Greek tragedy, while reality happened off-stage”, and her more recent experience of loss and grieving. Her experience is reflected in the frenzied and intangible mass of scenes and interactions, rooted in her use of mesmerizing props and objects which fascinate her in the real world. Stephenson creates a feverish mass of scenes and interactions which are symbolic of these transformative experiences. She is captivated by the roles we perform and the stage sets that we build around us in order to catch up with imagined future versions of ourselves. Stephenson plays on the theme of conspicuous consumption in many of these works, in a nuanced exploration of the human desire to fit in and belong. Whether it is the places we go, the people we meet or the food we eat; everything we do is attached to a projected idea of self. Through elements of performance, Stephenson asks the viewer to examine our own patterns of consumption. She explains “My paintings have become a stage in themselves for me. A sorting room for me to layer up my excess of anxious thoughts and play out narratives on the canvas. When I finish a painting, and a solid thing sits in front of me, a sense of calm wraps around me.” Mary Stephenson offers us a magnifying glass with which we can look more closely at our own constructed identities. Within the paintings the artist is trying to elevate this conflict by exposing the internal dialogues of characters, alongside their public “performances”. Throughout the paintings Stephenson is trying to create tension and apprehension between overlapping narratives, creating a nuanced frenzied habitat in which everyone aims to ‘exist’.
A special mention from the Selection Committee goes to Double Special Mention to Jannis Marwitz (Damien & the Love Guru) and Matteo Nasini (Clima Gallery).
Festival dos Espaços dos Artistas de Lisboa (Festival of Lisbon Artists Spaces), is a festival dedicated to artists’ spaces, independent entities, artist studios and artist-run-spaces, spread out throughout the entire urban area of Lisbon, which open simultaneously and include original collaborative exhibition projects, events and performances.
The main goal of MMAT Acquisition Prize for FEA Lisboa is to be consistent with the philosophy and ethics of the Festival: FEA Lisboa, the second edition of which will be taking place from the 14th to 18th of May 2019, is a project created to promote the artistic autonomy and renewal of the art system in a collaborative and mutualistic perspective.
FEA is willing to enhance the Lisbon-based artistic and cultural scene rethinking the artistic phenomenon recognizing its complexity and variability by bringing out the most innovative and spontaneous forms of cultural offer.
As FEA is aimed at stimulating a new kind of dialogue between artists and the city, the Prize (the acquisition of one work from the awarded project), will be selected among those which more distinctively will succeed in:
- Reaching a collaborative conception and creation of the exhibition and the artworks;
- Involving Lisbon urban territory, landscape and cultural heritage in the project;
- Stimulating and enhancing the entire Portuguese art scene at an international level.
MMAT announces the awarded project of its first Acquisition Prize: “The Pathfinders” by ABCC (Alexandre Camarao and Bernardo Simões Correia).
The Pathfinders, a collaborative collective project conceived, curated and hosted by ABCC(Alexandre Camarao and Bernando Simões Correia), is the winner of the first MMAT Acquisition Prize.
The Selection Committee composed by Mauro Mattei, founder of MMAT and by Andrea Baccinand Ilaria Marotta, founders of CURA. have unanimously selected the project from the 28 artists studios and artist run spaces involved in the FEA Festival which counted 144 artists participating.
The Pathfinders is a 6 channel video installation, sound installation with 29 original presets created with an analog synthesizer accompanied by a limited edition book.
In the invitation email that was sent to a group of 45 artists, ABBC asked for “three images that have been created through digital means (computer, cell phone, tablet)” following a set of 8 instructions.
The mentioned “instructions,” although apparently innocent, reflect the generalised perception of what constitutes a “digital image,” i.e., a computer-produced, screen-presented image. However, that was not always the case.
The Pathfinders, in the sense of “those who open up new tracks” has been created with the purpose to emphasize the complex nature of digital images. Digital images have an open definition, and the gadget and intelligence ecology that upholds its everlasting technical improvement, with its infinite virtualities, is vast. The Pathfinders explores such multiplicity without pretending to push for a supposed digital art. In fact, that’s a very foreign notion to this project.
These 45 pathfinders are not following a single track, but a variety of them, always in close connections to their respective, individual work processes. A digital image can either work out as an auxiliary for any given process, or can embrace a poetic, expressive value of its own. The “screens” on which the images are presented, has become the long-lasting interface of digital experience, which, phenomenologically speaking, is the surface that is the guarantor of the life, the movement, and the performance of digital images. Their squareness (a distant cousin from the classical canvas) organises our perceptions and even our emotions.
As FEA Lisboa is aimed at stimulating a new kind of dialogue between artists and the city, and has been created to promote the artistic autonomy and renewal of the art system in a collaborative and mutualistic perspective, the Prize has been awarded to The Pathfinders for its consistency with the Festival’s philosophy and ethics as the project distinctively succeeded in:
- Reaching a collaborative conception and creation of the exhibition and the artworks, involving 45 artists and their very diverse practices.
- Involving the local and the International Portuguese art scene to be part of the urban territory as the project has been presented where the ABCC studio is located.
- Stimulating and enhancing the analysis, and the dialogue on a topic (the digital image) which is a matter of art investigation on a global scale.
A special mention from the Selection Committee goes to Aires De Gameiro (Lisbon, 1989. Works and lives in Lisbon) among the participants to The Pathfinders project and also part for the FEA Program with a group exhibition named “There’s a horse in the backyard”.
The project has been held at Aires de Gameiro and Cintia Coutinho Atelier and included works by Aires De Gameiro, Cintia Coutinho, Ines Brites and Primeira Desordem.
Aires works have been already been an outstanding presence at the first edition of FEA in 2018 at Las Palmas, an artist run space in Lisbon, and the Selection Committee has decided to award him with a Special Mention as an artist who is deeply involved in the Lisbon art scene, as a contributor to collective and cooperative projects, having an active role for Lisbon urban territory as one of the most innovative and talented emerging artist participating to the Festival.
The Pathfinders will be presented in Milan at MMAT premises on the 19th of June with a special evening dedicated to ABCC’s project.
The details of the presentation will be announced soon.
CURA. is a curatorial/editorial platform, founded by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin in 2009, and consists of a magazine, a publishing house, and an exhibition program that works internationally in collaboration with museums, foundations, galleries, institutions and independents. Curatorial research and critical activity developed by CURA. is focused on both the investigation of new contemporary languages and on the development and implementation of new exhibition formats.