Matteo Viglietta
Award

Matteo Viglietta Award, coordinated by Collezione La Gaia and now at its fourth edition, was created in 2022 to commemorate Matteo Viglietta: an outstanding, passionate collector who had a very strong bond with Artissima from the outset, actively supporting the fair with acquisitions for his own collection and the production of collateral events, in which the exhibition space of Collezione La Gaia at Busca (founded with his partner Bruna Girodengo at the end of the 1970s) was one of the most frequently visited locations. The Viglietta family, with the purpose of paying homage to the joyful, curious spirit that drove Viglietta’s confident steps and voracious desire for art whenever he walked down the corridors of the fair. He was always interested in the discovery and rediscovery of radical practices, at times not rewarded with deserved levels of success in terms of audience and market. To some extent, the acquisition ratifies an established praxis of Viglietta, who every year would select a work having some degree of pertinence to the materials and utensils sold by his company – Viglietta Matteo SpA, a leader in the importation and wholesale distribution of hardware. Once again, this year, the work purchased at Artissima, besides becoming part of Collezione La Gaia, can be utilized as the cover of the “catalogue-pricelist”, and in this sense it will have a connection with one of the hundreds of products or materials, while paying homage to Matteo Viglietta’s ironic and irreverent spirit – that of a man with an open mind and a contagious smile.

In 2024, the prize was awarded to Francesca Cataldi (presented by the gallery Gramma_Epsilon, Athens).