Matteo Visconti di Modrone Award
In memory of the President of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia
The winner of the €10,000 award will be selected through an Open Call among proposals submitted by galleries participating in the 2025 edition of miart, the international fair of modern and contemporary art in Milan. The awarded artist will have the opportunity to create their work at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, assisted by its skilled artisans. The selection will be made by a jury, including Cecilia Alemani, Nikola Dietrich, Dr. Jelena Trkulja, and the President of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Bernabò Visconti di Modrone acting as Jury President.
This is a story of yesteryear, perhaps, and of high values, which unites a company, the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia active in Milan since 1913, with a man, Matteo Visconti di Modrone who became its President in 1999. Or vice versa. Matteo Visconti, who passed away in January 2023, knew, deeply wanted, to enhance the glorious past of this reality, its artistic and historical drive, the cultural significance that pervaded it in over a century of activity, and that earned him the Ambrogino d'oro in 1961. To commemorate the figure of the educated and cultured entrepreneur - but also patron - and lover of culture, books, art and his Foundry, the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Award has been created in collaboration with miart. This initiative is led by the Visconti family, who have taken on the responsibility of passionately continuing the foundry’s history and tradition.
The history of Battaglia is deeply intertwined with the history of art and the city of Milan. In 1964, Mario Lepore wrote in the introduction to the book celebrating the foundry’s first fifty years, expressing the passion that motivated Matteo Visconti to undertake numerous initiatives to promote contemporary art, bronze casting, and artists:
«The word 'foundry' always evokes a fascinating image in me, made of reality. And fantasy together. I see a gush of liquid, gleaming metal gushing from a fiery crucible and creeping, sizzling and enveloping itself in vapour, within the brownish earthen mass of the mould. And I still seem to see several men all around a pit, in which that block of earth soaks its matrices of molten metal».
The winning project will be selected from proposals submitted by artists responding to the Open Call, which will be launched in February 2025 by miart and Fonderia Artistica Battaglia. The €10,000 prize will enable the artist to create their work at Battaglia, assisted by the artisans working there. The winner will be chosen by an international jury comprising Cecilia Alemani, Nikola Dietrich, and Dr. Jelena Trkulja.
Lepore continues: «In the foundry, no machine can completely replace man, as sometimes happens in the industrial steel industry. None has his sensitivity, his skill, his talent. Nor does it succeed in abolishing his anxiety, his suffering, at the moment in which the work of art from the labile original forms, at the mercy of fire and metal, recreates itself in the substance that is definitively its own, that will make it last through the centuries. The cycle of metamorphosis unites the artist-creator with the craftsman, his necessary auxiliary, in the closest and, ultimately, most moving way. Both feel themselves to be participants in the same ritual, both aim - each according to their own function, and yet trembling together with their companion - at the same goal.
[...] At Battaglia's, the aura of craftsmanship, with its basic characteristic of love for what one does, with the continuous experimentation of individual skill and resourcefulness born of personal experience and inventiveness tested by necessity, has not been extinguished by the industrial factor; quite the opposite. And so has the warmth of the human relationship, which is always necessary and even vital for the artist. This explains why the workshop has been able and can produce colossal works that are both difficult and exemplary; why what comes out of it is always excellent; why, whatever the material to be used, this excellence does not diminish. The artists have known this for half a century: not only the Italians, but also the foreigners who are many and from all over the world turn here.
Those who visit via Stilicone (since 2019, the foundry has moved to via Oslavia in Milan’s Lambrate district, editor’s note) soon feel at home. If they wish, they can even work there: a studio is available to host them, and if it’s already full, they will still find a place for a sculptor who has no other options.
This close and friendly relationship with the artist is a longstanding tradition of the foundry, as is the choice of skilled, high-caliber craftsmanship, and a foundation of steadfast honesty. There is also something more—something secret, in its constant practice of discretion, carried out with generosity and cordiality. This cordiality, at times tinged with a kind of amiable ‘roughness,’ serves as a modest shield for deeper sentiment and is distinctly Milanese. I mean the tangible support offered to artists in countless ways and the trust wisely placed in their creativity."
The jury of the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Award is composed by:
Cecilia Alemani – is an Italian curator based in New York City. Since 2011, she has been the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, the public art program presented by the High Line in New York City. She is also the curator of the upcoming 12th SITE Santa Fe International, scheduled to open in June 2025. From 2020 to 2022, she served as artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale, where she curated the acclaimed exhibition The Milk of Dreams, which was visited by over 800,000 visitors.
Nikola Dietrich – is an art historian and curator. She was recently appointed as the director of Liste Art Fair Basel, with her first edition to take place in June 2025. Before this, she curated the eleventh edition of KölnSkulptur at the Skulpturenpark in Cologne. She was director of Kölnischer Kunstverein from 2018 to 2023, where she was curator of numerous exhibitions and publications with renowned artists. Her career also includes directing the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel from 2008 to 2013, where she also launched the adjacent exhibition space "Elaine". Prior to this time, she worked as curator at Portikus in Frankfurt from 2004 to 2007. Dietrich is the editor of numerous artist monographs and exhibition catalogs. Since 2014, she has also been engaged as co-editor of Starship Magazine, published in Berlin.
Dr. Jelena Trkulja – is an art historian, educator, and cultural strategist with a Ph.D. in art and archaeology from Princeton University. She has held academic positions at Princeton and Tulane Universities, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, focusing on art and architectural history and design theory. Her research spans Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Medieval art, alongside modern and contemporary architecture. Trkulja has worked with leading institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Qatar Museums, and directed European Commission-funded heritage preservation projects. Her interdisciplinary approach and international experience highlight the enduring impact of art and culture on society.
The President of the Jury:
Bernabò Visconti di Modrone – born in Milan in 1984, is the founder and CEO of Artshell, a Milan-based startup established in 2018 to offer innovative technological solutions to the Italian and international art system. Its digital services simplify art management through an integrated approach tailored to the needs of various industry players. Since 2023, he has also served as President and CEO of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, founded in Milan in 1913 and renowned for producing monumental and sculptural works of great historical and artistic significance through the lost-wax bronze casting technique.
