Friday, March 9, 2007

British Council Arts & Business International Award: Max Mara with Whitechapel Art Gallery

Imogen TildenFriday March 9, 2007, The Guardian:



Contemporary art today might be achingly hip, but its intersection with fashion is rarely at the glamorous, luxury end of the scale. Yet the collaboration between the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Italian fashion label Max Mara has produced one of the today's most succesful partnerships, in the shape of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. It's worked well in theory as well as practice, as the Whitechapel's director, Iwona Blazwick, explains.


Max Mara is dedicated to making beautiful clothes for women. They want to celebrate women's creativity - they see it as distinct and particular, and they wanted to focus on that specifically and find a project and nurture new talent."
Guido Guidotti, spokesman for the fashion house, emphasises his company's support of young talent. "We always have young talented students from, say, the Royal College and Kingston College." Both parties' specific support of women's creativity was key to the collaboration. "We liked what the Whitechapel does for women," says Guidotti, simply, whose label manufactures only for women.


London's Whitechapel Gallery has long championed the work of women. Barbara Hepworth's work was championed in the 1950s, and more recently, artists including Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin and Christina Agelias have been shown at the gallery.
"Supporting women artists is part of our history," says Blazwick.
The need for a women-only art prize is self-evident: "If a group exhibition features only men, it passes without comment. If it features only women it is immediately described as 'a women's show'," she says.


The biannual prize has has seen only a single winner so far - the Yorkshire-based film-maker Margaret Salmon; a second shortlist will be announced at this year's Venice Biennale.
Blazwick explains how the initial selection process worked. "Max Mara said 'OK, over to you!'" - giving the Whitechapel total freedom of choice over judges, shortlisted artists, and the eventual winner. "We didn't want to be part of the shortlisting," confirms Guidotti. Four female international judges were chosen and asked to suggest five emerging artists. "It was an extraordinary experience! I found myself looking at work I'd never heard of, and it was really hard to choose five artists only to shortlist," says Blazwick.
Rather than rewarding the winner with a straightforward cash prize, Max Mara were able to bring an extra unusual dimension to the proceedings. The winner is offered a six-month residency in Italy, where she has the opportunity to produce art that will firstly be exhibited at the Whitechapel, and then join the Maramotti collection.


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