Among the most prestigious awards of the contemporary scene, the MAXXI Bvlgari Prize supports and promotes young Italian artists. Established as a Young Art Award by the MAXXI Museum in 2000, since 2018, the award has consolidated in partnership with Bulgari in support of emerging arts. As announced during the ceremony held at the Bvlgari Hotel in London in October 2019, the finalists of this second edition are the artists Giulia Cenci (Cortona, 1988), Tomaso De Luca (Verona, 1988) and Renato Leotta (Turin, 1982), all belonging to ‘80s generation. Since October 2020 an exhibition curated by Giulia Ferracci presents the works of the finalists at MAXXI Gallery 5, overlooking Piazza Alighiero Boetti. As Govanna Melandri, president of the MAXXI Foundation points out, the works on display are ‘intense and evocative, they reflect on today’s society and explore the future.’ The message is reiterated by Jean-Christophe Babin, CEO of Bulgari, when he states: ‘We are facing the art of the future and this award today is crucial, precisely because we are in a moment in which we tend to close ourselves out of fear’. Whilst the denominator of Cenci’, De Luca’ and Leotta’s works is the awareness of artistic tradition, it is true however, that the works on display differ in their content by presenting three different lines of research which aimed to investigate the events, dynamics and the actions of contemporary society.

Departing from the atrium of the museum, the series of sculptural group lento-violento (2020) by Giulia Cenci, well relate to the existing context. These are a series of unfinished casts of animal and human bodies and industrial objects, underlining the artist’s anatomical lesson. They are battle scenes without losers or winners such as a stage representing the posthuman condition of men in relation to the animal life and technology. But, despite the dramatic tone of these suspended figures, Cenci moves beyond and goes to the essence of the power dynamics without judgment to draw  a rhythm – hence the title of the four sculptural clusters lento-violento (ring), (defeated), (vertical prison), (ininterrotamente) – which is sublime beauty and poetics for the relationship between human and non-human.

Tomaso De Luca presents the multimedia video installation A Week ‘s Notice (2009) where his meticulous cinematic eye focuses on domestic architecture to talk about an existential condition between the inside and the outside. Inspired by the phenomenon of gentrification occurred just after the AIDS epidemic that affected entire communities in the 80s and 90s, his work reflects the paradox that saw entire social realities disappeared whilst the market pursued profit. The three videos present unprecedented perspectives of domestic interiors deprived of their intimacy and personality, illuminated by a light that is as intimate as alienating.

Sophisticated are the videos Roma and Fiumi (2020) by Renato Leotta, which suggest a glimpse beyond banality, to reach a metaphysical dimension. These works offer a privileged point of view of the city of Rome by focusing on the offshore of Torre Argentina by presenting views taken from the perspectives of road surfaces, balustrades, and archaeological ruins, from the point of view of a feline eye in a world ruled by cats, a film shot in 16 mm film, and repeated in a short circuit of 12 video monitors. The artist’s archaeological imprint emerges from these videos and well articulate between real and metaphorical meaning, creating a perceptual disorientation that reflects on the human and animal lives within the fabrics of a social context intricated with memories.

The points of view suggested by Cenci, De Luca and Leotta are privileged, alienating, relativistic and innovative perspectives. They are gazes capable of probing the paradoxes of the contemporary world without aesthetics or false rhetoric, through critical distance and more interestingly, this becomes a far-sighted reflection of the human and non-human condition. Following the fortune of the predecessors, the winner of MAXXI BVLGARI Prize will be announced in 2021 based on the visitors’ votes and the will of an international jury. His/her work will enter the MAXXI Museum Collection, which today celebrates 10 years since its foundation.

Info:

MAXXI BVLGARI PRIZE
Artists: Giulia Cenci, Tomaso De Luca e Renato Leotta
28/10/2020 – 02/05/2021
www.maxxi.art/events/maxxi-bulgari-prize-2020