18th Premio Cairo
On 23 October in Milan, in the prestigious halls of the Palazzo Reale, the award ceremony for the 18th Cairo Prize, curated by the editorial team of Cairo Editore's monthly Arte magazine, was held.
Selected artists
Selected artists: Dimitri Agnello, Meris Angioletti, Ludovico Bomben, Giuseppe Buffoli, Tiziano Doria, El Gato Chimney, Christian Fogarolli, Monica Mazzone, Matteo Negri, Maria Teresa Ortoleva, Ettore Pinelli, Michael Rotondi, Matteo Rubbi, Manuel Scano Larrazàbal, Caterina Erica Shanta, Pietro Spirito, Kristian Sturi, Patrick Tabarelli, Serena Vestrucci, Giulio Zanet.
The Jury
The prestigious jury of the Cairo Prize, chaired by Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and composed of: Gabriella Belli, Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia; Bruno Corà, art historian and critic, President of the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini-Collezione Burri in Città di Castello; Gianfranco Maraniello, Director of the MART in Rovereto and Andrea Viliani, Director of the MADRE in Naples.
The winner
Serena Vestrucci wins the 18th Premio Cairo with the work ‘Trucco’, 2017, eyeshadows on raw canvas (execution time, two weeks), 200x180 cm. Born in 1986 in Milan, where she lives and works.
Exhibitions include:
2016 Ortica, Marsèlleria Permanent Exhibition, Milan
2015 8 Ore, Villa Croce Museum, Genoa
Filippo Del Corno, councillor for culture of the Municipality of Milan, Michele Bonuomo, editor of the monthly magazines Arte and Antiquariato, Serena Vestrucci, winner of the 18th Cairo Prize, Urbano Cairo, president of Cairo Editore and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, president of the jury of the 18th Cairo Prize and president of the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin
Eyeshadows on raw canvas (execution time, two weeks), 200x180 cm
Award-winning work
One of the founding aspects of Serena Vestrucci's experimental approach is her relationship with the creation of the work of art. The everyday elements, from which her works are born, are modified through ever-changing manual and conceptual practices that change the final perception of the work.
The work in the competition is part of the Tricks series, works in which the artist uses cosmetics products to "make up" the canvas. The coloring of the surface does not have an accomplished sense of the whole so that the final outcome appears completely random, leaving imperfections and wrinkles of the canvas well in view as if they were those of a human face.
In ‘Makeup’ we seem to catch a glimpse of a cloudy sky at sunset: a subject not actually represented, a fiction, a "trick," again only perceptual.
Award citation
The winning work, "Makeup," was judged the best with this motivation: "If the attitude of art is also artifice and showing itself, and its renewal occurs through unusual materials and tools, the work Trucco, effectively realizes this attitude, treating the painting as the skin of a body, making the work not a representation, but an apparition." Her work won the €25,000 prize and the cover of the December monthly Arte."