American contemporary artists Matthew Brannon and Eric Wesley, along with Italian artist Patrizio Di Massimo, are invited to Castelgiocondo for the third edition of the contemporary art award.
Milan, Italy March 29, 2016 – For the first time, Artisti Per Frescobaldi (www.artistiperfrescobaldi.it) has selected two American artists, Matthew Brannon (NYC) and Eric Wesley (LA), alongside Italian artist Patrizio Di Massim I o (Italy), to compete for the prestigious contemporary art award, now in its third edition. All the artists were invited to take inspiration from one of the family estates, Castelgiocondo, in Montalcino. The awards ceremony will be held October 21, 2016 at Gam, the Modern Art Gallery in Milan. The artists’ works, inspired by Frescobaldi’s Tenuta di Castelgiocondo estate, will be on public exhibition prior to the panel judging which will determine this year’s award recipient.
Tiziana Frescobaldi, Artistic Director of the project comments, “This year we paid attention to the United States, following our commitment to recognize international artists. We are looking forward to working with some of the nation’s finest artists.”
From 2016 forward, artists will draw inspiration from Tenuta di Castelgiocondo, Frescobaldi’s estate located in Montalcino, Tuscany, aiming to capture the spirit, history, and terroir of the site. “We selected to focus only on Tenuta di Castelgiocondo in the future because it is a place with a strong identity in the heart of Tuscany,” Tiziana said. Additionally, each artist will design a custom label for a collection of 999 magnums of a special selection of Castelgiocondo Brunello, specifically dedicated to the project. A portion of the proceeds from these wines will go to support Italian contemporary art.
Ludovico Pratesi, Artisti per Frescobaldi Curator adds, “We choose these three artists because they caught the essence of Castelgiocondo, although through different visions and languages, with an original and surprising interpretation of the award’s theme.”
The 2016 judging panel will include esteemed members of the art community such as:
Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director of the Trussardi Foundation in Milan; Samuel Keller, Director of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel; and Gianfranco Maraniello, Director of MART Rovereto.
The 2016 Artists
Born in 1971 in St. Maries, Idaho, Matthew Brannon now lives and works in New York. His artistic research started from a reflection on the history and evolution of graphics advertising, and continues with a reinterpretation and investigation of the limits and potentials of contemporary reality.
Eric Wesley was born in 1973 in Los Angeles where he lives and works. His sculptures and art installations offer an original point of view and often irreverent reality. In particular, his work offers an ironic view on the changeable relationship between art and society, artist and citizen, and seriousness and surreal comedy. His many exhibitions include the China Art Objects Galleries in Los Angeles among several other galleries throughout Amsterdam, Basel and Napoli.
Born in Jesi in 1983, Patrizio Di Massimo, currently lives and works in London. His works are characterized by an Italian identity, reading through an interesting overlap between tradition and modernity, using a wide range of expressive languages ranging from drawing and sculpture, to painting, video, and installation. He has held exhibitions in many Italian cities, including Turin during Artissima and the Villa Medici in Rome, among several European cities including London, Amsterdam, and Lisbon.
About Artisti Per Frescobaldi
Created in 2012 by Tiziana Frescobaldi, Artistic Director for Marchesi de Frescobaldi, and curated by art critic Ludovico Pratesi, Artisti Per Frescobaldi is an annual art program where three artists are invited to the Frescobaldi estates in Tuscany to garner inspiration for original works featured on Frescobaldi’s wine labels. The labels are then used on a limited number of enumerated Magnum bottles of the most important wine produced from the estate in each respective edition. A portion of the proceeds of these wines goes to support Italian contemporary art. The first edition, held in Milan at the Stelline Foundation, featured the works of Ra di Martino, Giovanni Ozzola, and Elisa Sighicelli. The second edition held in Germany, featured German artists Michael Sailstorfer and Jorinde Voigt, alongside Italian artist Yuri Ancarani. The Artisti Per Frescobaldi award is linked to the patronage tradition of the Frescobaldi family, who has been linked to many important artists since the Renaissance.
