Furla Art Award

A story about ideas, expertise and passion aimed at supporting up-and-coming Italian artists

The FURLA Prize for Art – that began in 2000 in partnership with the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice and ended after its tenth edition in 2015 – is a project designed to attract attention to and focus on up-and-coming Italian artists. A pioneering experiment in our country, over its ten editions, the Prize has gained international recognition as a cutting-edge Italian competition supporting talented young artists. From 2000-2015, the Furla Prize has constantly evolved under Chiara Bertola’s supervision, following the changing artistic scene both nationally and internationally, adjusting and fine-tuning its selection procedures, and actively involving leading figures from the art world and key institutions, as it has constantly striven to meticulously map out and study the whole of Italy, in order to offer visibility to those artists considered most deserving.
Joseph Kosuth, Ilya Kabakov, Lothar Baumgarten, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kiki Smith, Mona Hatoum, Marina Abramovic, Christian Boltanski, Jimmie Durham and Vanessa Beecroft are the artists, who have been the Prize’s patrons over fifteen years, devising the overall image and setting the title of each edition and also heading the panel of judges. The Furla Prize has helped young Italian artists to develop, offering a fundamental steppingstone in their artistic careers.