3/19 Art Daily – Pirelli HangarBicocca exhibition wins GFAA Award

MILAN.- Pirelli HangarBicocca has won the 2018 Global Fine Art Award in the Best Impressionist and Modern category for solo artist shows. The award is part of the Global Fine Art Awards program, set up to recognize the best curated art, culture and design exhibitions around the world in museums, galleries, fairs, and biennials, as well as public installations. It has been won by Pirelli HangarBicocca for the exhibition Lucio Fontana: Ambienti/Environments, which was on show in the exhibition space in Milan from 21 September 2017 to 25 February 2018. It was curated by Marina Pugliese, Barbara Ferriani and Vicente Todolí, and organised in collaboration with Fondazione Lucio Fontana.

For this fifth edition of the Global Fine Art Awards throughout the year, more than 2,000 exhibitions were researched and reviewed. In the 13 juried award categories, 94 exhibitions from 31 countries were ultimately selected by the nominating committee and judges as official nominees. The international jury consists of Savita Apte, James M. Bradburne, Gina Costa, Joe Lin-Hill, and Dean Phelus.

The award ceremony was held on Tuesday, 12 March at the Harold Pratt Mansion in New York. The prize was accepted by Vicente Todolí, the artistic director of Pirelli HangarBicocca, who commented: “This is an acknowledgement of our years of commitment to putting on exhibitions of the highest curatorial quality. These are unique and distinctive projects that are conceived and produced for the spaces at Pirelli HangarBicocca.”

The exhibition Lucio Fontana: Ambienti/Environments, which was devoted to Lucio Fontana’s environmental studies, was made up of two spatial interventions and nine Spatial Environments that had never previously been shown together, and that are of crucial importance in the artistic career of the twentieth-century master. The catalogue was published by Mousse Publishing. Some of the environments on display were reconstructed for the first time since the artist’s death. This was made possible by the study and research carried out by the art historian Marina Pugliese and the restorer Barbara Ferriani, together with the fundamental contribution of Fondazione Lucio Fontana.

The 250,000 visitors registered during the opening period were able to see and enjoy Fontana’s lesser-known works for the first time, learning about their historical importance, while also appreciating their contemporary relevance, which was highlighted by a display installation that created a dialogue with the former industrial structure of Pirelli HangarBicocca.

The exhibition also proved to be of great value for researchers, curators, and art historians. For example, two Spatial Environments currently on display in the exhibition Lucio Fontana: On The Threshold at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in collaboration with Fondazione Lucio Fontana, which runs until 14 April 2019, were reconstructed internally, based on the Pirelli HangarBicocca reconstruction project for the exhibition in Milan. The works on show are: Spatial Environment in Red Light, 1967 [67 A6], at The Met Breuer, and Spatial Environment at Documenta 4, in Kassel, 1968 [68 A2], at El Museo del Barrio.

The winners by category:

Global Planet

“John Akomfrah: Purple,” Barbican, London; Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden; TBA21 Academy, Vienna,;The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon

Global Humanity

“Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Honorable Mentions: “Fred Wilson: Afro Kismet,” Istanbul Biennial, Pace London, and Pace New York, and “Skate Girls of Kabul,” Aga Khan Museum, Toronto

Best Post War / Contemporary (WWII-Present) – Solo Artist

“Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth,” Royal Academy of Arts, London, The Broad, Los Angeles

Best Post War/Contemporary (WWII-Present) – Group or Theme

“Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Guggenheim Bilbao

Best Impressionist and Modern (1838-WWII) – Solo Artist

“Lucio Fontana: Ambienti / Environments,” Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan

Best Impressionist and Modern (1838-WWII) – Group or Theme

“Living Proof: Drawing in 19th-Century Japan,” Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis

“Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1943,” Fondazione Prada, Milan

Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties (1200 – 1838) – Solo Artist

“Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master, “Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Honorable Mention: “UNKEI – The Great Master of Buddhist Sculpture,” Tokyo National Museum

Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties (1200 – 1838) – Group or Theme

“Eternity and Time between Michelangelo and Caravaggio,” Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy

Honorable Mention: “Painted in Mexico 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici (Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Best Ancient Art (circa 1200 BC)

“The World of the Fatimids,” Aga Khan Museum

Honorable Mention: “Mariana. A Bronze Age Kingdom in Turkmenistan,” Neues Museum, Berlin

Best Public or Outdoor Installation or Exhibition

“Softer: Jenny Holzer,” Blenheim Palace

Honorable Mention: “Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai’I,” New York Botanical Garden

Best Photography

“Shape of Light,” Tate Modern, London

Best Design

“Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

Best Fringe / Alternative Exhibition

“Charles I: King and Collector,” Royal Academy of Arts, London

Besides research-based nominations, GFAA accepts open calls from museums, biennials, fairs, galleries and other art organizations, as well as individual patrons.