Main Partner
Main Partner
The Matteo Viglietta Award, promoted by Collezione La Gaia, was awarded to Gamze Palabiyik, presented by the gallery VON&VON. Created in 2022 to commemorate the collector Matteo Viglietta, the award recognizes radical and unconventional artistic practices.
The selected artwork Fabrika / my grandma used to work in a cushion factory, and she used to tell me folktales when i was young, (2025) will join the La Gaia Collection, continuing a tradition of acquisitions – started and consolidated by Viglietta himself – that connects contemporary art, materials and everyday objects.
“For the ability to weave personal memory into collective history through a rigorous visual language that carries real depth of meaning. In Fabrika/my grandma used to work in a cushion factory, and she used to tell me folktales when i was young (2025), the young German artist Gamze Palabiyik draws on family memory and on the tradition of textile manufacturing. Her grandparents emigrated from Turkey to Germany in the 1960s, and she turns their story into a refined reflection on identity, on the bond between generations and on the value of work.
The padded satin cushion is an intimate place of rest and confidences, and here it becomes the physical and conceptual keeper of the folktales her grandmother passed down. The hardness of the industrial blade, meanwhile, recalls the toil and harsh conditions of manual factory labour.
The tensions within the work open a profound dialogue with the entrepreneurial and human story of Matteo Viglietta and his family. The work is a call to reflect on fundamental issues of pressing urgency today, such as the dignity of work and the right balance between professional and personal life.”
