ICI honors Miuccia Prada and Germano Celant
2013 Leo Award: Miuccia Prada
2013 Agnes Gund Curatorial Award: Germano Celant
On Tuesday, November 19, Independent Curators International (ICI) will honor Miuccia Prada with the 2013 Leo Award, and Germano Celant with the 2013 Agnes Gund Curatorial Award at ICI’s Annual Benefit & Auction held at Center548 in New York City.
The Awards will be presented in tandem to acknowledge the work of a team—recognizing the honorees’ individual contributions to the world of contemporary art, as well as their work at Fondazione Prada, including the recent exhibition When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013, the ambitious re-staging of the seminal exhibition by one of the forefathers of independent curators, Harald Szeemann. Agnes Gund, ICI Trustee Emerita, will present the Awards created by artist Liz Glynn.
The Leo Award, named after the legendary art dealer and early ICI supporter Leo Castelli, is given in recognition of those who have made pioneering contributions to the field of contemporary art. With the Leo, ICI preserves a tradition: a commitment to honoring the individuals who have paved the way for a forward-thinking generation of curators and artists.
The Agnes Gund Curatorial Award, named after Agnes Gund for her long-standing dedication to ICI, honors a curator who has made significant contributions to the presentation and discourse of contemporary art.
Miuccia Prada, Head Designer of the Prada Fashion House, earned a degree in Political Science from Milan University and began designing accessories for the exclusive family business founded by her grandfather, Mario Prada, in 1913. At the end of the 1970s, she and Patrizio Bertelli became business partners, and Ms. Prada became the driving force of the development and international expansion of Prada.
Together with Patrizio Bertelli, Miuccia Prada has co-chaired Fondazione Prada since 1995, an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. Its cutting-edge exhibitions conceived in dialogue with major contemporary artists like Louise Bourgeois, Walter De Maria, Thomas Demand and John Baldessari, as well as other cultural activities related to cinema, philosophy, and architecture, have enjoyed a wide international consensus. Special international projects included Carsten Höller’s Double Club in London, the Prada Transformer in Seoul by OMA and Francesco Vezzoli’s 24h Museum at the Palais d’Iéna in Paris. In 2011 the Fondazione Prada opened a new exhibition space in Venice, Ca’ Corner della Regina, an historic palazzo on the Grand Canal.
Germano Celant, Director of the Fondazione Prada Milan since 1995, is a renowned art historian, critic, and theoretician, who has served as the curator of hundreds of exhibitions worldwide and published more than one hundred books and catalogues. Celant is the curator of the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan, and Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova in Venice. He was the Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from 1989 until 2008, the artistic director of the first Biennale di Firenze (1996), curator of the 47th Venice Biennale (1997), and artistic supervisor for Genoa’s year as European Cultural Capital in 2004. A longtime contributing editor to Artforum and Interview Magazine, Celant writes regular columns for the Italian magazines L’Espresso and Interni. He received the Frank Jewett Mather Award in 1987 for exceptional art criticism.
About ICI
Independent Curators International (ICI) connects curators, artists, and institutions to forge international networks and generate new forms of collaboration through the production of exhibitions, events, research fellowships, publications, and curatorial training. Established in 1975 and headquartered in New York, the organization provides public access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.
In 2013, 10 ICI exhibitions have been presented by 37 venues in 19 countries and 13 US states. 66 curators and artists have contributed to ICI’s talks, public programs, and research initiatives; and 94 curators from over 33 countries and 8 U.S. states have participated in the Curatorial Intensives, ICI’s short-course professional training programs.
