The 11th Edition of the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize, the major international acknowledgment dedicated to curators under 30, designed by the GAMeC in 2003 with the support of the Gruppo Bonaldi, and which first emerged from the desire to commemorate Lorenzo Bonaldi’s passion for art and collecting, has been won by Panos Giannikopoulos for his exhibition project Dancing Plague.
The jury, headed by Lorenzo Giusti, Director of the GAMeC, and made up of:
Marina Fokidis, Independent curator and writer, Athens
Roberta Tenconi, Curator, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano
after having examined the various competing projects presented by all the candidates, it was unanimously decided to award the Prize to the project Dancing Plague, that involves the artists Benni Bosetto (IT), Ufuoma Essi (UK), Klaus Jürgen Schmidt (SA), Lito Kattou (CY), Petros Moris (GR), Eva Papamargariti (GR/UK) Konstantinos Papanikolaou (GR) Mathilde Rosier (FR/DE), Michael Scerbo (IT/UK) and Elisa Zuppini (IT/NL).
The jury particularly appreciated the imaginative nature of the concept which, starting from the historical episode of the Dancing Plague, establishes a dialogue with great poetic prowess between European history, issues of colonialism and the subalternity of minorities, as well as the recent experience of the pandemic.
With a highly contemporary vision, the project orchestrates various media and experiences, and reflects from an original perspective on the concepts of dance, the body and illness.
Finally, the ambition of the narrative choreographed by the curator bore fruit, with a proposal drawing on close collaboration with the artists, using the resources offered by the prize to commission new works specifically designed for the museum, with great awareness and maturity.
Ever since its foundation, the Prize has always aimed to underline the central role and the meaning of the figure of the curator on the international artistic panorama through the production of an original exhibition project, conceived on the basis of a given exhibition space and a fixed budget.
As well as Panos Giannikopoulos, selected by Marily Konstantinopoulou and Dimitra Nikolou, Co-founders and Directors of ARTWORKS, Athens, the 11th edition of the Prize saw the participation of the following curators:
Agencia 17 (Julia Castelló e Ali A. Maderuelo)
Selected by Mariana Cánepa Luna and Max Andrews, Founders of the curatorial platform Latitudes, Barcelona
Giulia Colletti
Selected by Ilaria Marotta e Andrea Baccin, Founders of Cura., Roma
“Mehdi & Badrou” (Mehdi Meklat e Badroudine Saïd Abdallah)
Selected by Mouna Mekouar, Independent curator and art critic, Morocco/France
The project will be hosted at the GAMeC in 2022.
Panos Giannikopoulos (b. 1991) is an independent curator. He holds an MA in Gender, Society and Politics (Panteion University, Greece) following on from studies in History, Archaeology & History of Art (National Kapodistrian University, Greece). He is currently working for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program of ARTWORKS, while previous roles include that of the Curator & Researcher at the Contemporary Greek Art Institute (ISET) and the arts section editor for NOMAS Magazine. He is a member of the curatorial team of the Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale “School of Waters” that took place in San Marino (2021).