Time for Women! Empowering Visions in 20 Years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 

Don’t miss the exhibitions at Palazzo Strozzi: Tracey Emin during the Easter holidays. Sex and Solitude, the largest exhibition ever held in Italy dedicated to one of the most famous and influential artists on the contemporary scene, and Time for Women! Empowering Visions in 20 Years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, a special event celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, one of the most important awards dedicated to supporting female artists. 

TIME FOR WOMEN!

Palazzo Strozzi and the Collezione Maramotti present Time for Women!, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women – one of the most important awards dedicated to supporting female artists – and the long-standing collaboration between Max Mara, Whitechapel Gallery and the Collezione Maramotti, through the works of the nine winners of the prize from 2005 to the present: Margaret Salmon (1975, New York), Hannah Rickards (1979, United Kingdom), Andrea Büttner (1972, Germany), Laure Prouvost (1978, France), Corin Sworn (1975, United Kingdom), Emma Hart (1974, United Kingdom), Helen Cammock (1970, United Kingdom), Emma Talbot (1969, UK), Dominique White (1993, UK). 

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women is a biennial award created through a collaboration between Max Mara, Whitechapel Gallery, and Collezione Maramotti. It is aimed at female artists and consists of a six-month residency in Italy. During this time, the winner can dedicate themselves to research for the production of a new project that is then exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia.

The exhibition in Florence, in the Strozzina spaces at Palazzo Strozzi, pays tribute to two decades of female artistic innovation and creativity by presenting, for the first time all together, the projects that the nine winning artists conceived following the long residency in Italy, a central part of the award. Painting, video, sculpture, and installation will alternate in a journey of reflection on themes such as identity, memory, the body, society, and politics.

Time for Women! Empowering Visions in 20 Years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women is promoted and organized by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Collezione Maramotti.

Main Sponsor: Max Mara.

Thanks to Whitechapel Gallery.

INFO: 

www.palazzostrozzi.org / T. +39.055.2645155 

PRESS OFFICE

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi: 

Lavinia Rinaldi, l.rinaldi@palazzostrozzi.org | +39 055 391711 

Collezione Maramotti: 

Zeynep Seyhun, zeynep@picklespr.com | +39 (0)349 0034 359 

Maria Cristina Giusti, cristina@picklespr.com| +39 (0)339 8090 604 

Max Mara:

Andrea Iacopi, T: +39 0277 77921, E: iacopi.a@maxmara.it

TRACEY EMIN. SEX AND SOLITUDE

Curated by Arturo Galansino, General Manager of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation, the exhibition investigates Emin’s multifaceted activity from painting, drawing, video, photography, and sculpture, experimenting with techniques and materials such as embroidery, bronze, and neon. The title refers to two key words, sex and solitude, that permeate the more than 60 works on display, which cover different moments in the artist’s career, from the 1990s to the present day, in an intense journey through the themes of the body and desire, love and sacrifice.

Many of the works in the exhibition are being shown in Italy for the first time, such as the monumental bronze sculpture I Followed You To The End (2024), exhibited in dialogue with the Renaissance space of the Palazzo Strozzi courtyard, or the historic installation Exorcism of the last painting I ever made (1996), reconstructed in one of the rooms on the Piano Nobile. A fundamental part of the exhibition is also new productions, in different media, created for the occasion.

Tracey Emin is famous for her direct and raw approach to translating personal experiences into profoundly intimate, intense, and powerful works. She never represents specific events, but captures emotions such as sexual passion and melancholy, which are made explicit in an artistic universe made up of different dimensions, forms, and media, in which desire and love are intertwined with pain and sacrifice.

“Contemporary art is an integral part of Palazzo Strozzi’s identity and we are proud to present Tracey Emin’s work in a major exhibition unprecedented in Italy, allowing the public to discover one of the most famous and influential artists on the contemporary scene,” says Arturo Galansino, General Director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and curator of the exhibition. “The exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi follows a thematic path, offering the public an immersion in the feelings that animate Tracey Emin’s art. Sex and solitude, opposite poles evoked by the title, represent the fulcrum of her artistic practice, an intimate dialogue between the desire for connection and the inevitable isolation of existence”.

Tracey Emin. Sex and Solitude is promoted and organized by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Public supporters: the Municipality of Florence, the Region of Tuscany, the Metropolitan City of Florence, and the Florence Chamber of Commerce. Private supporters: Fondazione CR Firenze, Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondazione Hillary Merkus Recordati, the Palazzo Strozzi Partners Committee.

Main Sponsor: Gucci.

INFO: 

www.palazzostrozzi.org / T. +39.055.2645155 

PRESS OFFICE

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi – Lavinia Rinaldi

Cell. +393385277132 l.rinaldi@palazzostrozzi.org

PROMOTION

Susanna Holm–Sigma CSC, T. +39 055 2478436 susannaholm@cscsigma.it