The Furla Prize 2011 to Matteo Rubbi

The eight edition of the Award, conceived by Chiara Bertola to sustain young contemporary artists, will bring to the making of Viaggio in Italia.

Matteo Rubbi has been named winner of the 8th edition of Premio Furla 2011 last Friday evening, 28 January, at Palazzo Pepoli, during the opening of the exhibition of the five artists "Pleure qui peut, rit qui veut. The jury, consisting of Christian Boltanski, Stefano Chiodi (art historian and critic), Vít Havránek (curator), Jörg Heiser (co-editor of frieze magazine and guest professor at Art University in Linz, Austria), Miguel Von Hafe Pérez (director of CGAC the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Compostela, Spain) acclaimed Matteo Rubbi "for his ability to interact with the viewers and to create new feedbacks between the exhibition space and public space in a spirit of generous engagement. His work engages with different cultural domains in both conceptual and material terms, and reveals a keen sense for experimental adventure: from the re-airing of Luigi Nono's opera Intolleranza 1960 on the national broadcast Rai Radio Tre, inviting unassuming passersby to tune in, to his project to explore the small town reality of Italy by way of interaction with local newspapers as part of a "journey" in the spirit of Pasolini, Ghirri and Celati". Lorenzo Bruni, curator who selected Matteo Rubbi together with guest curator Carson Chan (co-director of Gallery Program, Berlin), defines his work "sculpted actions" for the purpose of raising the viewer's awareness of "daily" living and his concept of art. The friction between the abstract concepts with which man has always organised the world and the empirical experiences that have enabled him to discover it is always the focus of his research, which is aimed at "measuring" and "re-imagining" the places where he intervenes. Rubbi's work therefore consists of celebrating the "meeting" between the subject and the context, giving rise to an epiphany or estrangement with which the viewer/actor is obliged to re-evaluate the methods and rules applied to perceive reality.

<i>Intolleranza 1960</i>, the project by Rubbi that was related to the happening devised for the opening. Rubbi invited unassuming passersby to tune in the broadcasting on Rai Radio Tre of Luigi Nono's homonymous work. — *Intolleranza 1960*, the project by Rubbi that was related to the happening devised for the opening. Rubbi invited unassuming passersby to tune in the broadcasting on Rai Radio Tre of Luigi Nono's homonymous work.

The award consist of an amount of 35.000 Euro divided in two part: the winner will create a work financed by the Fondazione Furla and destined for public exhibition thanks to a special agreement with the MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna. The work of the winning project will premiere at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice in June 2011, for the occasion of the 54 Biennale of Visual Arts. In addition the artist get the opportunity to study and work abroad in an artist's residency program, in collaboration with the Arizona State University Art Museum (Tempe, AZ, USA) the West Coast, from Arizona to San Francisco. Viafarini, a documentation centre on contemporary art where the materials of the first five editions are archived, will manage everything.

<i>Bounty, (sail)</i>, 2010. Reconstruction in a scale of 1:1 of the H.M.S. Bounty, beginning with a small model. Newsprint, wax crayons, scotch tape. Made together with some elementary and middle schools from the city of Milan in the spaces of the Pomodoro Foundation. View of the installation at the CNAC Le Magasin, Grenoble for the exhibition entitled "Sindrome Italiana" (9 October 2010 - 2 January 2011). Courtesy of the artist and Studio Guenzani, Milan. — *Bounty, (sail)*, 2010. Reconstruction in a scale of 1:1 of the H.M.S. Bounty, beginning with a small model. Newsprint, wax crayons, scotch tape. Made together with some elementary and middle schools from the city of Milan in the spaces of the Pomodoro Foundation. View of the installation at the CNAC Le Magasin, Grenoble for the exhibition entitled "Sindrome Italiana" (9 October 2010 - 2 January 2011). Courtesy of the artist and Studio Guenzani, Milan.

The four finalists were:
Alis/Filliol - Andrea Respino (Cuneo, 1976) and Davide Gennarino (Torino, 1979), nominated by Simone Menegoi and Marianne Lanavère.
Francesco Arena (Brindisi, 1978), nominated by Vincenzo De Bellis and Philippe Pirotte.
Rossella Biscotti (Bari, 1978), nominated by Cecilia Canziani and Vincent Honoré.
Marinella Senatore (Salerno, 1977), nominated by Alfredo Cramerotti and Emily Pethick.

<i>Appare il futuro terribilmente vicino</i> (The future is terribly near), 6 May 2010.
Full reprint of 5000 copies and distribution in bars in Torino of the daily newspaper <i>La Stampa</i> of 6 May 1961. Courtesy of the artist and Studio Guenzani, Milan. — *Appare il futuro terribilmente vicino* (The future is terribly near), 6 May 2010. Full reprint of 5000 copies and distribution in bars in Torino of the daily newspaper *La Stampa* of 6 May 1961. Courtesy of the artist and Studio Guenzani, Milan.

Matteo Rubbi was born in Seriate, Bergamo in 1980. On 2000 he registered for the Brera Academy, where he attended courses by Luciano Fabro and Alberto Garutti. In 2004 he began collaborating with the Isola Art Center, Stecca degli artigiani, in Milan. In 2006 he participated in the Advanced Course for Visual Arts at the Ratti Foundation in Como under visiting Professor Marietiça Potrc.

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