Maxxi Bvlgari Prize: The young artists gaze shows excellence in the world of contemporary art

It’s not the first time that Bvlgari has collaborated with great names in contemporary art, including Anish Kapoor and Zaha Hadid who revisited the famous B.zero1 ring for the fashion house, personalizing it with their own creative flair.

The collaboration between the Maxxi and Bvlgari began in 2014 with the Bellissima exhibition. L’Italia dell’alta moda 1945-1968. Since 2018 Bvlgari, a symbol of Italian savoir-faire, has offered its support to the award created in 2000 which over the years has launched many young artists.

The 2022 edition, this is the third with Bvlgari’s patronage. Together with the Maxxi they share values ​​such as excellence, creativity, passion for art and the desire to make room for experimentation and innovation. The common goal being to invest in contemporary creativity under the gaze of young talents who will design the future.

The finalists' works can be seen until November 20, 2022 in the Maxxi Gallery 5, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts housed in a building designed by Zaha Hadid.

The exhibition begins in the Archive Room, the walls decorated using the ancient Japanese technique of Kintsugi. Here, three display cases show notes and materials the artists used in the creation process, which you can browse before discovering the real works. 

Competing for the prize, the 3 finalists display their site-specific pieces each presenting their own unique point of view on history, nature and society, deeply rooted in the present.

All three include dimensions of both their personal reality and that of the collective in an attempt to understand the contemporary world and its continuous evolution. Let's get to know them better.

Alessandra Ferrini was born in Florence but lives and works in London. Her art is rooted in history, especially in post-colonialism, but it also explores the way in which we record history and the relationships between Italy, the Mediterranean area and Africa.

Namsal Siedlecki is American, he explores the transformation of matter, both natural and artificial, through sculpture.

Silvia Rosi lives and works between Modena and London but has Italian-Togolese origins. Her research is based on concepts of origins and identity, achieved mainly through photography.

The first work to view along the exhibition path at the Maxxi Museum is by Alessandra Ferrini. It is titled Gaddafi in Rome: Notes for a Film, a video installation that analyzes the media story of Gaddafi's official visit to Rome in 2009. On that occasion, the Treaty between Italy and Libya was signed which led to a cascade of consequences, from the recognition of colonial damage by Italy to the violation of human rights caused by the refoulement of migrants.

The themes it addresses are the spectacularization of events, and the communication reported not pertaining to the complexity of the issues and Italy's relationship with its colonial past which are still largely denied.

The Nuovo Vuoto by Namsal Siedlecki shows the artist's journey in six sculptures made by 3D scanning the inside of an old bronze hand that the sculptor purchased online. Starting with absence, a void, to fill the empty space with matter and meaning using different materials such as plaster, concrete, wood, stoneware, polystyrene, bronze and glass. Through the various stages the shape changes slightly showing how much the past affects the present but also that you can always start over.

Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense by Silvia Rosi explores the identity of her family and an entire population through photographs and videos starting with the native language of Togo, threatened by the colonial imposition of French and German but capable of surviving over time despite everything.

If you want to take advantage of the Maxxi Bvlgari Prize project to explore Roman places and neighborhoods devoted to emerging artists, your first stop must be to Ostiense. Considered the neighborhood of Roman and Italian Street Art, it was the first area in the capital to host works of international artists, from Blu to Guy Denning, Behr and Roa seen along the railway underpasses and on the walls of buildings and apartment blocks.

The Von Buren Contemporary Gallery (formerly Rvb Arts) is a contemporary art gallery whose focus is on accessible art. Its goal is to identify emerging talents and promote exhibitions aimed at making contemporary art known in a fun and informal way. Its artists are mostly contemporary painters, sculptors and photographers. The spirit that radiates within the space is beautiful, where a sense of awe and grandeur is not necessary, alongside the work of exploration and dissemination,  experts and neophytes can speak the same language.

In Rome, young artists become the undisputed protagonists of a story of beauty, with their contemporary creativity, art and sensitivity, a source of inspiration to any viewer.