Miart 2025, awarded the acquisition and commission prizes

Miart 2025, an international fair dedicated to modern and contemporary art, organized by Fiera Milano, has announced the winners of the acquisition and commission prizes: the Orbital Cultura - Nexi Group Prize, the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize, the SZ Sugar miart Commission and the Massimo Giorgetti Prize.

Now in its third edition, the Orbital Cultura - Nexi Group Prize, the only award within miart entirely reserved for photography, aims to enrich the collections of historic Italian museums with high-quality contemporary images. This year the selection awarded Linda Fregni Nagler (b. 1976, Stockholm, Sweden), represented by the Monica De Cardenas (Milan, Zuoz, Lugano) and VISTAMARE (Pescara, Milan) galleries in the Established section. The artist will be commissioned to create a photographic documentation work on the Villa Reale complex in Milan (including the Galleria d’Arte Moderna - GAM, the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea - PAC and the garden), with an award of 10,000 euros.

The jury composed of Ilaria Bonacossa, Director of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Gianfranco Maraniello, Director of the Area Musei d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of the Municipality of Milan, and Francesco Zanot, Curator and photography critic, as well as President of the jury, motivates the commission with these words: “Linda Fregni Nagler has distinguished herself for an artistic practice that interweaves memory, visual culture and narrative, using photography as a powerful means to investigate the cultural and historical stratifications of our time. The jury recognizes the exceptional nature of her approach, and anticipates the possibilities of reinterpretation that this practice can offer with respect to subjects such as the Villa Reale and the PAC in Milan, at once deeply linked to the city’s history and protagonists of its present. The artist’s works are characterized by his attention to the language of photography and the manner in which they are made, staging his own operation and highlighting the centrality of the phases of research and study in an age in which images are in danger of becoming increasingly separated from reality itself as well as from any process of in-depth study. Her peculiar working method, which combines the roles of scholar, image producer, curator and collector, promotes a constant reflection on the role of the artist in the panorama of contemporary culture, in full correspondence with a commission that aims to revise and reimagine the places where art is exhibited and told to the public.”

In memory of the President of the Battaglia Art Foundry, the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize, worth 10,000 euros, is now in its third year. This year the award was given to Ruth Beraha (born 1986 in Milan, Italy), represented by Ncontemporary (Milan, Venice, London) in the Established section of miart. The artist will have the opportunity to create her work inside the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, taking advantage of the support and expertise of the specialized artisans working there.

The jury composed of Cecilia Alemani, Director, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. and Chief Curator of High Line Art in New York, Nikola Dietrich, Director of Liste Art Fair Basel, Jelena Trkulja, Senior Advisor for Academic and Cultural Affairs of the Qatar Museums in Doha, and Bernabò Visconti Di Modrone, Founder and CEO of Artshell, President and CEO of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia and Chairman of the Jury, justified its choice as follows: “the sculpture proposed by the artist, an upside-down eagle with its head embedded in a pedestal, not only subverts the quintessential symbol of power, but above all represents an alternative ”absent“ dimension, the eagle’s head that is not there and that remains latent, opens up a series of questions about the meaning of the monument and power today forcing us to confront our times. The prize will offer the artist the opportunity to work for the first time with bronze, a material he has not yet explored, and to embark on a path of experimentation and discovery with the foundry, adding value and unexpected elements to the proposed project.”

The project by Mario Airò (born 1961 in Pavia) represented by VISTAMARE (Pescara, Milan) in the Established section, on the other hand, won the second edition of SZ Sugar miart commission worth 5,000 euros. Created in collaboration with SZ Sugar, a publishing house dedicated to contemporary cultured music founded in 1907 under the name Edizioni Suvini Zerboni and part of the Sugar Music group led by Caterina Caselli and Filippo Sugar, for miart 2025, the prize gave participating galleries the opportunity to have their artists perform “Musica per una fine,” a composition by Ennio Morricone for choir, orchestra and magnetic tape with a recording of a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini read by the author. The selected, realized work was presented at the fair in a dedicated space.

Chiara Enzo (born in Venice in 1989), at miart with ZERO... (Milan) in the Established section, is the artist selected for the third edition of the Massimo Giorgetti Prize, which stems from Massimo Giorgetti’s desire to support young artists at the beginning of their careers. The prize worth 5,000 euros awarded as support for practice and research was given by the jury composed of Massimo Giorgetti, Founder and Creative Director of MSGM Milano, Edoardo Monti, Founder and Curator of Palazzo Monti in Brescia, and Gea Politi, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Flash Art, with this motivation: “the jury chooses Chiara Enzo’s work for her research on complex dynamics between the individual and his surroundings. Her work focuses primarily on the often problematic tensions and interactions between the self and one’s vulnerability. The focus of her pictorial research lies in the exploration of particular moments and circumstances that have the power to alter the perception of reality. The artist dwells on emotional states and situations that test the human being, such as moments of fragility, conditions of strong psychological pressure, circumstances of imminent danger or, conversely, moments of deep intimate connection. The jury will also be pleased to see the evolution of the artist’s work.”

Miart 2025, awarded the acquisition and commission prizes

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