Rebeca Romero: OGR Award winner

Rebeca Romero, represented by Copperfield gallery based in London, was the winner of the fifth edition of the OGR Award organised by Artissima and Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT.

This year the OGR Award has been in dialogue with the project METAmorphosis, the second episode of Beyond Production in which Artissima and Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT engaged in reflections on the most innovative trends in contemporary art. The focus for 2022 was the phenomenon of Metaverse.

Semilla SAGRADA (2023) was presented both in its physical version, in the spaces of the Duomo at OGR Torino, and in its 3D version in a virtual space of the Duomo created on the Spatial platform in the Metaverse visible free of charge over time. The winning artwork, thanks to the synergy with the OGR Award, was acquired by the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and became part of the Fondazione’s Collection on free loan to OGR Torino.

The work, in its digital version in the Metaverse, will continue to be available here.

The winner was chosen from among the artists selected during Artissima 2022: Marcos Lutyens—Alberta Pane, Paris and Venezia; Eva & Franco Mattes—Apalazzogallery, Brescia; Rebeca Romero—Copperfield, London; R M—Martina Simeti, Milano. 

The prize was awarded by an international jury composed of Amira Gad, curator and writer, Rotterdam, Lars Henrik Gass, director, Festival Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Samuele Piazza, senior curator, OGR Torino, and Domenico Quaranta, art critic, curator and lecturer specialised in media art, Milan with the following statement: 

“We decided unanimously to award Rebeca Romero, represented by Copperfield gallery based in London, for her project Semilla SAGRADA. As is exemplified by her artistic practice whereby she adopts an archaeological approach, the project excavates ancient histories into a future civilization, evoking the complex relationships between the real and the virtual, the digital and the material, heritage and symbolism. The jury appreciates the analogue angle of using materials such as textiles in her engagement with the metaverse as well as the links drawn between shamanism and the digital. Additionally, with this prize, the jury supports a project that addresses the metaverse as a shared place that can be actively and collectively designed, contributing alternative, non-Western histories and imaginations to its development.”

In collaboration with technical partners specialized in digital technologies (Artshell), in legal issues connected with NFTs (LCA Studio Legale) and in computer 3D graphics inside the Metaverse (Revibe—Metaverse Experience Factory), the four artists participated together with their galleries in an educational series of meetings on the Metaverse and its potential and limitations in the artistic sphere. 

Thanks to the support of Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, Artissima has offered to the selected artists the possibility of producing a physical artwork and its digital alter ego in the Metaverse guided by Ilaria Bonacossa, director of Museo Nazionale dell’Arte Digitale of Milan.

The projects of the four selected artists are hosted online on a digital platform developed by Artshell.