First Acquisition Prize at Premio Montani Tesei Under 35 Award for Vasilis Papageorgiou

11.12.20

Premio Montani Tesei

Vasilis Papageorgiou wins the First Acquisition Prize at Premio Montani Tesei Under 35 Award.

The 2020 edition of ArtVerona sees the collaboration with a new partner, a young and prestigious subject that will support the under-35 artists present at the Fair with an acquisition award. The Studio Montani Tesei law firm is specialized in art law, protects companies and individuals in their relationship with the art system and its mission focuses in particular on those forms of awareness of the world of culture and collecting aimed at creating awareness and adequate knowledge of the current regulatory system. Under these premises, it was natural to come up with the idea of instituting an acquisition prize dedicated to the younger artists, those who are most in need of support and at the same time can be the harbingers of ideas capable of improving and innovating the system even outside the art scenario. Therefore, the selection will concern all under-35 artists exhibited at ArtVerona without medium or language barriers!

The lawyer Virginia Montani Tesei, founder of the firm, born in 1986, comments with a touch of irony on her decision to support an under-35 award, an anything but banal choice but in this case also very personal: “I think supporting the generation of artists of my age group seems the most natural thing to do. I think of my peers and I, who were born in the year of the Chernobyl explosion and graduated during the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and who now, at almost 35 years of age, have to deal with the Covid pandemic which puts projects and ambitions at risk. So, to support my generation – often unfairly defined as that of ‘big babies’ – seems to me the best way to make a small contribution to Italian art in such complicated times“.

The Award will trigger the engagement of the ArtVerona public: the jury panel – made up of Sveva and Francesco Taurisano (CollezioneTaurisano, Naples), Sabrina Comin (Project Manager of TRA Treviso Ricerca Arte) and Virginia Montani Tesei – will select 8 under 35 artists among those represented by the galleries participating in the Fair. Their names will be shared on the Instagram page of ArtVerona and can be voted for. The jury will assign the Award by choosing one of the three names most voted for online. The shortlist of the eight finalists will also be published on the Fair’s website and on the Artshell platform.

Vasilis Papageorgiou is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2018.